Telpher ~ A Time Travel Anomaly

Chapter 1. Exeter

March 7, 2376 (Greenwich Earth Standard—GES). En route to Adonis System, Sagittarius Sector S5, Orion Spur.

A shudder in the ship interrupted the half-forgotten tune Rolfo was humming to himself. He glanced at the engine readouts displayed on the holographic panels in front of him. Normally, the Frankel-Spinoza Drive produced a ride so smooth that you could play Space Marbles without a single marble moving even a millimeter from its position in the weak magnetic field of the game matrix. A second tremor, greater than the first, got his full attention. But Rolfo was an old hand at space travel. While the tremors were unusual, he remained confident there was an answer to this situation. He could be a little casual sometimes, but he knew his stuff and didn’t miss a beat when it counted. “When push comes to shove, it pays to be methodical,” he announced aloud though there was no one present to hear him. It was a saying he had picked up from his uncle, though he scarcely was aware of it.

Holographic readouts sprang into view in the smallish space of the ISS Exeter’s navigation compartment. Motioning one virtual screen after another, he went through all the flight plan checks. He visualized the code for diagnostics, then the password, and began the long process of checking expected subroutine values against actual metrics. The figures marched virtually in front of him as he meticulously carried out the required checks. It took an hour to go through the engine parameters and he found nothing out of normal. The next check would be the navigation diagnostics comparing vectors and values from the transit beacons against the ship’s posted flight plan. Rolfo was a little less confident in that realm, being an engine man, not a navigator.

While the parameter screens on the HyperNav were coming up, Rolfo went over in his mind some basic facts that he knew, at least superficially. The F-S Drive achieved interstellar travel between distant regions of space without the ship itself moving in its local space. That sounded weird to Rolfo until he found a better picture of what was happening. Their travel was like an ocean wave moving to shore. The wave advanced to its destination, but the molecules of water basically stayed in place, moving up and down as the wave passed. Not the best illustration, but it worked for Rolfo. Some called it warping space, other said they folded space like an accordion—something about an Alcubierre Metric. Whatever you called it, Rolfo didn’t understand the physics of it. But Rolfo did know that during the hyperspace portion of the journey you could not communicate outside your local space bubble with ordinary means. That’s where the tachyons came in, particles that travelled faster than light, allowing communication with the navigation beacons that were set up on Earth and in the destination solar system. There were navigation beacons in other star systems as well, those colonized from Earth in the last two hundred years.

Tachyons had been discovered some three hundred years ago. Development of a practical tachyon-based communication system came much later. Until the development of drives for interstellar travel, you didn’t need tachyons for anything, as far as Rolfo knew. They were just interesting curiosities in an otherwise well-understood universe. For galactic space travel you needed a functioning and accurate tachcon, as starship crews called the tachyon-based interstellar navigation and control system. The tachcon, or HyperNav as it was known officially, was key to the practicality of the F-S Drive. Until one of the founders of InterStellar invented the HyperNav, there had been no known way to guide a starship traveling inside a spacetime bubble. Without it, you could end up just about anywhere. Or anywhen, Rolfo mused, though the thought seemed so weird it passed into and out of his consciousness in a moment’s time.

  Chief Petty Officer on the Exeter, Rolfo Hardy had drawn tachcon duty during the sleep shift for the next four day-cycles. He had served on this starship for almost five years now. Just out of drydock, the vessel he once knew as ISS Trident had spent three months in lunar orbit while being retrofitted with the newest version of InterStellar’s F-S drive. And she had a new navigation system that used the latest tachyonic technology to come out of IS’s research labs on Verde. Rechristened ISS Exeter, this trip to Verde from Earth was her maiden voyage with the new drive and navigation system. This was Rolfo’s first tour of duty on what would become known as an Exeter-class starship.

As a space liner commissioned to transport both humans as well as freight to distant reaches of space, passenger comfort was an important selling point. If InterStellar was about anything, it was about selling, and profits for the company were still shaky since the crash of ’67. Investors were nervous. The Exeter-class ship, with its luxurious appointments, was the company’s newest inducement to vacationers to make the weeks long trip to distant star systems. With the Exeter-class IS hoped to add tourism as a significant component of its revenue sources along with the ever-reliable commercial freight business.

Rolfo recalled the early days, as well as stories his father and uncle told him about the first century of interstellar travel. There were some rough tumbles when the warp drive was first being perfected. Rolfo thought back on some of the stories he had heard sitting at his uncle’s feet. In the early days there were uncertainties with your exact location in local space, given the coarse tuning of the first tachyon transponders. The main problem with that was exiting hyperspace. Re-entering normal space had to do with what the science-types alluded to as unfolding the spacetime envelope. The re-expansion of the compressed space in front of the spacecraft as it entered Euclidian space was explosive to anyone or anything near the reentry point. There were repercussions for the entering spaceship as well. You had to manage the transition with considerable care. Rolfo, with but a trade directorate education, did not understand that stuff. However, he experienced it when, as a young man, he first entered space flight service. That was quite a few years ago and no longer a serious problem. The HyperNav they had now gave precise location information, and disengagement of the F-S Drive had become a smooth operation.

As if to underline the advances in interstellar travel Rollo uttered one of his usual epithets, announcing his thoughts to no one in particular: “Exeter…well, she’s a class act!” Class act or not, there was no known reason for these vibrations during warp. Rolfo continued his checks.

While a new suite of virtuals assembled themselves in his overlays, Rolfo eased into the adjoining break alcove to get a mug of coffee. CPO Hardy was a middle-aged man of average height and weight with well-developed muscles due to his rigorous use of the shipboard weight room. He was good looking without being what you would call handsome and often had a twinkle in his eye—particularly in the presence of a beautiful woman. He had never married.

Rolfo surveyed the replicator and gave mental assent to one of the options. He was instantly rewarded with fresh brewed java just as he liked it—black and hot. Like seamen of old, a stimulating beverage was a welcome relief in times of tension. Like his uncle used to say about space flight, some things never change. Rolfo thought of his recent visit to the Space and Galaxy Museum back on Earth in KCMetro, the capital of the North American Federation. One of the exhibits there was an antique version of today’s coffee vendor—an actual machine that was connected to water, had coffee beans it ground up and buttons you pushed with your finger to get the brew you wanted. Push-button panels such as those had long since been replaced by the cyber-organic, sub-cutaneous implants he had. Thought assisted surveillance and control, aka TASC, was a suite of implants that allowed a person to communicate with and control just about any kind of machine or cybertronic device. There were various grades of TASC implants, with different levels of control and communication capabilities. Rolfo’s TASC was basic, his folks not having been able to afford a more advanced unit when he was born. Of course, being crew on an InterStellar vessel and unmarried with no family to support Rolfo could have upgraded. He just never got around to it. The rough and tumble of youth, when many of your friends (or enemies!) could outsmart you in ways you couldn’t anticipate, had taught him the survival tricks he needed as he grew up. Old habits were hard to break.

No more coffee beans either! The Exeter’s replicator could perform a complex molecular synthesis for just about any concoction you wished—legal concoctions that is! So, some things had changed. Though, truth to tell, when he was at that museum in KCMetro he had ordered so-called real coffee made with real coffee beans. It was different—maybe even better, he had to admit to himself.

An ominous ping pulled him out of his reverie. He reentered the adjoining nav compartment and set his coffee aside on a narrow shelf. Directing his attention to the holo-screens showing the navigation stats, Rolfo found something that wasn’t right. Definitely not right. He paused the routines, made a note of the databank identifier, and immediately put in a call to Anders, the First Officer.

“What’s up, Rolfo,” answered the Exeter’s XO, who was also the chief navigator. “I am right in the middle of an old North American Western. It’s the good part where the hero is about to rescue his girl from the Indians. I hope you’ve got a good reason to interrupt me.”

Rolfo knew Anders was pulling his leg. The crew all knew she had a penchant for those old 20th Century vids (movies she called them). Rolfo figured she did it more as a joke on herself than out of real interest. Jana Anders was well educated, with multiple degrees in celestial mechanics and astrophysics. Cowboys and Indians, he guessed, was just a means of relaxing her highly tuned brain.

“Did you feel those tremors a while back?”

“Yes, I did. But the Indians were raiding the settler’s encampment and I guess I was preoccupied.”

Rolfo wasn’t sure whether she was still joking or not. “Well, I thought it was unusual, so I started running the engine and navigation diagnostics. And…”

“And well you should have, Rolfo,” Jana interrupted. “I always feel better when you are on duty.”

Rolfo felt a small blush come to his face at this. Jana was an attractive woman with naturally straight blond hair and finely combed bangs that all but covered a high forehead. Her blue-grey eyes fascinated the likes of Rolfo. Still, in her early forties as was he, she was presently unattached… Anyway, her charm aside, he knew she was out of his class.

“Well, you know how we do get a bit of turbulence sometimes when we re-enter. But we aren’t due to pop into Verde space for another week. Right?”

“That’s right. So, what did you find?”

Rolfo told her and Jana Anders was transported instantly from 20th century America to the now of the 24th century. “Say again, please!”

“I said, the tachcon is showing an approximate 300-year time displacement vector on the departure beacon, as if the Earth signal had originated way in the future.”

“I’ll be right down. No, first I’ll alert Captain Tang. In the meantime, pull up the module that houses the rotation tensor algorithm. You know how, right?” She did not wait for Rolfo to answer, dropping the link and putting in an emergency comm to Tang. Anders had felt all along that prototype trials of the new HyperNav system, the Gen-4, were not as thorough as she would have liked. She had not been convinced the new system was space worthy. It was one thing to prove out new navigation algorithms in the relatively benign environment of InterStellar’s planet-bound lab on Verde, where gravitational effects on spacetime were well understood. It was quite another to be assured that they would function correctly in relatively unknown regions of space. Even minor anomalies in the gravitational field could potentially distort the communications paths between ship and planet-based navigation beacons. Shipboard transponders were sophisticated enough to detect and report local anomalies. But navigation accuracy depended upon those signals being captured and analyzed by an elaborate network of galactic navigation centers. The planetary control centers continuously communicated with shipboard equipment to ensure fidelity to the flight plan.

Jana worried that the improved sensitivity of the new HyperNav might make it more susceptible to very strong gravitational fields. She had been outspoken to management in her beliefs, to no avail. The company was under pressure from stockholders, and she was told that they needed to push into the new market as swiftly as possible. The new navigation system would cut interstellar transit times almost in half. More direct routes to the destination were possible by reducing the allowed separation between the ship’s warp bubble and the steep gravitational wells caused by large stars.

* * *

March 7, 2376 GES, Orbiting Earth

Lukos Manteel had just begun his shift, comfortably couched in the navigation pod of IFSS No. 5. Inter-Federation Space Station Five was one of several geosynchronous satellites orbiting Earth. There, space flight controllers monitored all space travel—both within Sol’s system and without. The warp room, as the navigation pod was known, was where the trained tachyon flight controllers were stationed. They monitored the regular pings from interstellar ships as they traveled in hyperspace from Earth’s sector of the galaxy to other distant regions. Like old-fashioned radarscopes, controllers could see the progress in interstellar space of all outbound and inbound traffic. Tonight, Lukos was assigned to monitor the sector of space in which that newest class of space liner, the Exeter, was making her maiden voyage. Lukos felt important to be assigned this role.

ISS Exeter had entered hyperspace about two weeks ago, Earth time, and was due into local space around Verde in six days. Her progress in hyperspace had been without note and there was not anything to worry about. The geosynchronous satellite system around Earth provided continuous communication with land-based supercomputers. At an altitude of some 42 thousand klicks above the planet the satellites could monitor the celestial routes of all interstellar traffic in all directions of travel outbound from Earth. Routing and starship locations were analyzed with microparsec accuracy. A redundancy of such satellites allowed the several Federation client states around the world to have their own communication link. More importantly it provided 100% coverage for even the small portion of space blocked from the view of any one satellite at any one time as the Earth rotated, as well as backup in case communication systems aboard a satellite failed. Officially named Terra Control Nexus, it was complemented by similar arrays of planet orbiting or surface-based control centers in every star system with human habitation. The complex, intra-galactic assembly of control centers guaranteed the safety of interstellar travel. The Inter-Federation Astronautical Commission coordinated policy and operations to produce a smoothly functioning pan-galactic agency. Since IFAC’s establishment the management of space traffic had become routine.

Lukos booted the system under his own login ID. He reflected how there were some unfortunate incidents in the early days. Spaceships had gone off course or even gotten lost for a while. But no lives were lost, and the early pioneers of interstellar travel persevered through the formative stages of space travel. It was odd, he thought, to be thinking about such things, and quickly shifted mental gears. Now, in the year 2376, interstellar jumps were routine.

Communicating with the HyperNav control interface with his specially purposed TASC, Lukos brought up the Narrow Field Array that showed the region of space within 5 parsecs of Exeter. The NFA was projected holographically in front of him. At this point in its journey Exeter was supposed to be passing within about half a parsec of a large blue supergiant of about ten solar masses. That was significantly closer than the older starships were allowed to get to such a large gravitating mass. But the new navigation system had been proven to permit this. At least, that’s what management told them. Lukos had memorized Exeter’s flight plan (a skill for which he was justifiably proud as well as commended by his superiors) and knew that this was the closest she would pass to a large star system. You did have to be careful to not get too close to a massive star when in warp drive since the curvature of spacetime near such an object could potentially interfere with the tachyon navigation beacons. A blinking green triangle represented Exeter in the display, mimicking the periodic transponder signals. Lukos watched the blinking icon with a mixture of satisfaction and ennui. Then it was gone.

Lukos stared at the shimmering panel, mouth ajar. “That just doesn’t happen,” he mumbled aloud to himself. Assuming it to be a vid-rack failure, he activated the secondary vid-screen while checking his own heads-up display. There was no blinking green triangle on the secondary either. With a rising sense of panic, Lukos manually switched to the backup monitor, a piece of hardware from earlier days that was still considered by old timers as more reliable than the TASC-directed scanners. Many of the newer flight controllers preferred the implant scanners since it kept their hands free to play old fashioned vid-games. Lukos scorned the opinion. Hands for old school vid-games but not for old school (yet proven!) monitors? Give me a break!

Adjusting the backup monitor with a few keystrokes to Exeter’s flight plan and last-recorded position, Lukos found the blue supergiant star and zoomed in on a region 2 parsecs in diameter around the star. There was no Exeter. He zoomed in closer, but still no Exeter. Lukos knew the drill at this point, despite a growing state of disbelief and rising tension. He first initiated a traffic control transfer to IFFS No. 2, the Pan-Pacific Federation satellite, and requested confirmation of the readings he was getting. They were confirmed. With backup systems reporting all Earth-based systems functional the next step was to elevate the event to Control Central. Selecting the central comm link, Lukos announced, “Priority alert! Potential space liner navigation failure! ISS Exeter X156 has stopped responding to nav pings.”

The Nexus chief of staff came back in a few moments, “Acknowledged. Send last known coordinates Exeter X156 to Lunar Nexus 2”

“Aye, aye,” intoned Lukos as he keyed in the communications code for the backup navigational beacon array on Luna. Nav-Luna was a remote site operated by the privately funded Space Travel Association as a backup in case the IFSS Control Nexus went down or had problems—something that never happened. Lukos keyed in the last reported coordinates of Exeter and waited for Nav-Luna to respond. Thirty seconds later Nav-Luna sent back a hologram image of Exeter local space. There was the blue supergiant, but there was no sign of Exeter.

On the comm link again Lukos announced, “Chief, Nav-Luna query negative. STA reports Exeter off the beacon.”

“Roger that. Commence emergency polling. I’ll report up the chain.”

“Aye, aye.” Lukos felt like he was in a dream.

The low murmur that always formed the audible background of the navigation pod had disappeared. There was complete silence as Lukos’ fellow space-flight controllers gathered around the Nav-Luna display that now showed empty space where there should have been a starship—the starship Exeter.

* * *

March 7, 2376 GES. Location: Unknown

Captain Arun Tang was a square-faced, solidly built man whose outward hard appearance belied a pacific temperament and a keen insight. In his mid-sixties now, he had piloted interstellar space liners for over thirty years. Recently widowed, he had two grown children—one of whom was accompanying him on this journey. Tang was not easily ruffled. But, as he listened to his XO’s report on the apparent failure of the tachcon, he acknowledged to himself a growing concern. The source of his disquiet was Ander’s agitation signaled by an unexpected modulation in her voice, up and down nervously. That’s very much out of character for her. Tang smoothed back a lock of graying hair and absently fingered one of his bushy eyebrows as Jana continued, her voice now on an upswing in a note of hopefulness.

“The tachcon does not appear to have failed. It still seems to be pinging something, unless it’s just an echo.”

“Then how do you explain the time coordinate shift?” Tang lifted an eyebrow, favoring his chief navigator with a piercing glance. From long association with her, Tang was not misled by the seeming image of innocence Anders sometimes affected, aided by an almost childish face and hair that she wore long to her shoulders. Commander Anders, who was taller than many women, possessed an acute intelligence and an unerring ability to exercise command when and if needed.

“I can’t,” she almost whispered through generous, yet barely parted lips. Jana fixed Tang with a thoughtful yet troubled gaze. Tang was disturbed by her uncharacteristic response.

“Well, let’s try a different tack. Where do you think we are?”

“What do you mean? We’re in a spacetime envelope, as you well know.”

“No, I mean where in normal space are we? I believe that our flight plan would put us in the vicinity of Bellatrix. If we dropped out of warp, would we expect to see the star?”

“Of course we would, Captain. How could we be anywhere else?”

Lieutenant Joss Sommers, Exeter’s helmswoman, listened silently to this exchange. She unconsciously wrapped an unruly curl of black hair at the back of her neck around her little finger. Her petite and limber frame permitted a very informal, almost contorted posture in the pilot’s couch. Anders and Tang had convened this emergency meeting, joining her on the Bridge. She confirmed Anders’ statement. “The last reading from the HyperNav showed that we were 33 AU from Bellatrix and travelling at a speed of 4800c relative to local Bellatrix space.” Glancing at the ship’s chronometer, she continued, “Assuming we were at the point of closest approach to the star at the last tachcon reading before the coordinate shift, and given that this was about 45 minutes ago, we should be about 14 hundredths of a parsec away if we drop into normal space at this point. Bellatrix is a Class B2 blue giant with a luminosity of about 1100 times Sol and a radius of about six times Sol. So, let’s see…” Scanning the figures projected on her retina she focused on one of the readouts and reported, “At that distance if we went normal it should appear to us to be more than 600 times brighter than Venus as viewed from Earth, and around six times the angular size of Betelgeuse. The star should be quite visible. A large and beautiful blue diamond in the sky,” she added, with a wry look of amusement on her caramel-toned face. Her normally smiling black eyes were silent.

Tang wondered to himself why Sommers assumed they were at the point of closest approach when the tachcon went haywire. Is she thinking the same thing I am? “Well, why don’t we drop out of warp and find out if we are?” Sommers and Anders simultaneously turned to face him, with questioning looks.

Tang had a reason for suggesting this. He wondered how thoroughly Anders had thought through the possibilities. Their nearness to that star as they passed was beginning to trouble him. It was possible that spacetime curvature was greater than expected and was interfering with the new navigation system. Perhaps by dropping into normal space they could re-establish communication with Earth or with Verde, their destination. The ship’s negative mass power source had sufficient fuel to leave and re-enter hyperspace multiple times, so that was not a concern. Tang looked at Jana. Like most men, Tang sometimes felt the sensual appeal of her wide-set, credulous eyes, but did not believe or credit the scuttle often heard in certain ranks of IS fleet personnel about her ability to bewitch a man with them. An attractive woman, he thought, wistful at the remembrance of Maddy when she (and he) was Jana’s age.

Jana’s countenance brightened. “I see where you’re going,” she said, her eyes resuming their customary sparkle. “We drop into normal space where tachyon transmission is not befuddled by strong spacetime curvature.”

“Exactly,” Tang’s confidence in Anders’ high intelligence was again rewarded.

“Then, we re-establish contact and request Earth-based diagnostics. Earth-sat routines should be able to locate the anomaly and, if it is onboard software, even possibly transmit a recalibration signal, if necessary.” Jana knew she was grasping at straws a bit in that last statement. But what was the harm in hoping that would be the fix?

“Should we do a ship-wide announcement?” Sommers asked.

“No, that might cause panic, or at least give the stewards a handful of problems.” Tang thought of his unusual manifest. Besides the crew, the commercial passengers on this flight consisted entirely of a large contingent of “new-world” colonists. More than a thousand souls fleeing the complexity and congestion of Earth to begin a new life on a new planet. Thinking of them, he observed further, “Of course, astute passengers will figure out that we have gone normal. I will instruct the chief steward in what we are going to do and let him handle any nervous people. Watskil is good at that.”

Captain Tang sent out an all hands call to the crew, as Commander Anders took up her position at the central navigation console. Sommers engaged the helm, rearranging her diminutive frame into a more formal position in the cushioned chair. Her physical size and flirtatious demeanor belied an acute intelligence and capability for intense concentration. She began to set up the codes for shutting down the warp drive. Tang knew there was some danger in this maneuver. There was at least a strong possibility of turbulence since they were still near that big star. But that could not be helped, and he could think of no better way to crack this egg. Anders’ concurrence, once she saw where he was going, gave him added confidence. If there was anything that could jeopardize the ship in the maneuver they were about to try, she would have spotted it and spoken up. He glanced over at her, noting the somewhat strange but nevertheless peaceful expression on her face.

“On my mark!” Tang spoke the command. “Three, two, one, initialize!”

Sommers executed the envelope reversal routine and the ship surfaced smoothly into normal spacetime. Holographic displays leapt into view over the command console giving them a stunning three-dimensional view of their local surroundings. The Milky Way was a majestic vista across the lower portion of the display. Just to the center right was a large bright disc. It could not have been more than 200 million kilometers away, about the distance of Mars from Sol. A star, certainly. But decidedly not the brilliant blue diamond they expected to see. And it was much closer.

Other than Tang’s mumbled “What the…?” there was a stunned silence on the Exeter’s Bridge as they all viewed the orange-red star in the viewer. Despite the jarring turn of events, Anders was busy querying the tachcon. Tang shot her a questioning glance.

“No, Captain, there is no change in the tachcon. I think it must be in an internal loop. “I will reboot it, but I am beginning to suspect it is non-functional.”

“Sommers?” queried Tang.

“I’m running a scan on that star right now.”

The growing tension became evident in their voices, threatening to destroy protocol.

“Jana, any idea where we are?” Tang almost shouted as he paced about the Bridge.

“I’ve performed a search of the stellar neighborhood looking for known star configurations—constellations, if you will. It looks like we are in a location, as seen from Earth, on the border between the Constellations Pisces and Andromeda. That’s quite far from where we should be. But it gets worse. There is something wrong with some of the star positions. I’ve got the computer running a relative stellar motion profile.”

That puzzled Tang. “Why?”

“Just a hunch.” She did not want to say more. More long minutes passed.

Then Sommers announced, “Captain, it’s a K0, young main sequence star, a little cooler than Sol. It masses as 0.76 Sol and appears to have a slight variable output in the visible region. Might even have habitable planets,” she added, with a quizzical expression that accented her small facial features and piercing black eyes. “I am inputting the exact spectral characteristics into the Federation Stellar Database to see if there is a match with any known stars.”

The Bridge of the Exeter settled into an uncomfortable silence, as Tang’s crew continued to study the nearby star and its neighborhood. Tang got on the intercom with Watskil to find out how the passengers were doing and was reassured that all was relative calm. Chief Petty Officer Rolfo Hardy requested admission to the Bridge, which was granted. Jana was glad for his silent presence. He had a firm stance with feet slightly apart and hands clasped behind his back. Smiling at him, Jana felt a momentary sense of hope. He smiled back at her through admiring brown eyes.

Tang stared at the grapefruit sized star in the viewer, almost transfixed, his thoughts a jumble of possibilities, none of which he wanted to give credence to. Long minutes passed. His troubled reverie was broken by Sommers and Anders, both speaking at once.

“I’ve got a match,” announced Joss.

“Yes!” exclaimed Jana at the same moment. But the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach did not match the brief exultancy she felt at finding her hunch to be correct.

“Joss, you first.” For some reason Tang was afraid of what Jana was going to say.

“Well, Captain, it’s a star cataloged in the FSD as 54 Piscium. About 36 lightyears from Earth and about 6th magnitude from there. The system is unexplored.”

“And” Jana now interjected, “The star is in the position relative to Earth that it occupied in about the year 2029 GES.” Her normally soft voice was clipped, hard, emotionless.

Tang jerked around to face her. “Meaning…” he began but couldn’t finish.

“Meaning that beside having travelled to a location in space far from our intended destination, we have also apparently travelled back in time some 350 years—347 to be exact.” Jana let those last words drop like mill weights into the deadly pool of silence that mirrored an eternity in their midst.

Long moments passed. Then Tang spoke: “How…how did that happen? I mean, if it is true?” He did not believe it, could not believe it. He looked at Jana, at Joss, at the other crew on the Bridge. They simply stared back at him, the enormity of this development still fascinating their thoughts like a meteor shower. Then Jana spoke up.

“I think the HyperNav encountered a bug in the module that continuously calculates the Alcubierre Metric. That then led to a spatio-temporal dislocation which propagated into the F-S Warp Drive.”

“Translation, please!” demanded Tang. “Translation: The malfunctioning drive created a spacetime rip—a gateway, or wormhole, if you like—and we travelled through it, coming out the other side in a far-removed spacetime.” Jana’s voice was still rather mechanical. She continued, “And it is likely that the gate was unstable and collapsed after we went through.” After a pause she added, “Meaning, we cannot go back through it as it doesn’t exist anymore.”

Chapter 2. Sonja

Late May, 2052 (Common Era—CE). Toronto, North American Federation.

Sonja felt her Lynk signaling an incoming call and knew it was Sergei even before looking at the display. She could almost hear him saying, “Want to do dinner?” Not tonight, she thought. She just could not spend another evening with him when all they talked about was his research, his ideas, his dreams—even if his dreams of space travel did inspire her. That was the main attraction of this strange man for her—his bold ideas of travel to the stars. Although Sergei was not particularly handsome, Sonja allowed him to move the relationship beyond the platonic. She excused herself by saying that it was hard to find guys with more than just sex on their minds, even in grad school. Sergei, with his brilliant intellect and ready ability to discuss far out concepts, was a welcome exception. She just liked being with him and if that meant sleeping with him occasionally, well that was an added pleasure. Or was at first. Unfortunately, it eventually become apparent that Sergei had only one obsession—himself. In the face of this Sonja had belatedly sought to cool off the relationship with only partial success. Now, because of her earlier willingness, Sergei had a different view of their relationship than she did.

But not this night, she told herself again. This night was to be a celebration of Sonja, for she had just heard from CETL that her application for a post-doc position there was accepted. Yes, Sonja thought, I would have liked to celebrate this with a fellow scientist—even Sergei, if he could be counted upon to share my success instead of just his own. But I know better! He’ll just mumble congrats or something non-committal and then launch into his own latest pet ideas. So, Sergei, you’re going to have to spend the evening by yourself.

Had Sonja known Sergei’s call was about passing his orals she might have relented, owing to the sympathetic side of her nature inherited from her Spaniard father. But tonight, her Irish heritage would reign supreme and reward her with the rich accolades of self-congratulations that were her due. Kudos that she otherwise would not get from men like Sergei.

With the appointment to CETL, Sonja felt her life was just beginning. The Center for Extraterrestrial Life! Sonja reflected on her good fortune to get the post doc position there. CETL was part of the University of North America and located adjacent to the UNA main campus in Kansas City. She would be assisting Dr. Eleanor Spitzer, noted astrobiologist and program director at CETL, on a new project for which CETL had just obtained a grant from the Federation Science Foundation. They would be developing psychogenesis models to investigate the potential origin and evolution of mental processes in intelligent species that might be found on known exoplanets. It was speculative work given that very little was known about the geological makeup and atmosphere of these extra-Solar worlds, among other factors that might influence the emergence of intelligent life.

An even more speculative aspect was a subtask of the main FSF grant that involved exploring new methods for detecting signals from intelligent societies on those planets. Surely, with the billions of stars in even our own galaxy, it was reasoned they must exist. Sonja’s most fervent dream was to be able to travel to the stars herself, not just hear from them. However, if travel to the stars was out of reach (Sergei notwithstanding) then Sonja would be satisfied with communicating with their putative yet enigmatic denizens. That is where Sonja would be focusing her efforts at CETL.

Pausing at the hallway mirror before leaving her apartment, Sonja removed the band that held her rich auburn hair in a ponytail and tossed her head to free the gentle curls. Parted in the middle without bangs, it fell in generous waves to her shoulders. She had a delicate, almost aquiline nose with just a slight upturn and soft emerald eyes wide set under arched eyebrows. Friends told her she had a perpetual, laughing smile. Sonja hummed a tune she had heard that afternoon in the Toronto Museum of Language and Culture. There was an interesting exhibit at the museum on the history of popular music with the opportunity to put on earpieces and listen to various samples from different eras. One struck her with relevance. Though the song had been written some 100 years ago, the words were so fitting for her new life: I’m goin’ to Kansas City, Kansas City here I come…  She thumbed her Lynk to page Grace Reason, a neighbor in her apartment complex who was a singer in a local hop-pop band. Grace, she was sure, would know how to have a good time tonight—without any self-important men to distract them!

* * *

Sergei Levkov was elated. He had just been informed that he had passed his orals at the Toronto Technology Institute with flying colors and was cleared to begin his thesis work in earnest. The questions on exotic matter and possible practical applications were a cinch, as he knew they would be. With a kind of smug chuckle aloud, he recalled the expressions of near disbelief on the faces of a couple of the committee members as he laid out the basic concepts for an exotic matter engine. He knew they were thinking: where does he get such ideas? Well, he thought somewhat ruefully, it was not where but what to do with those ideas that was important to him now. That would come soon enough, he hoped. He always had a plan and even this detour in Toronto would not deter him from final victory.

Pulling his Lynk from a pouch in his tunic he keyed a message to Sonja. He hoped she would answer, he wanted to see her tonight. Most of the people in this university—students and professors alike—were boring and lacked any genuine intellectual talent. Talent that he could respect, in any event. And outside of the university, in the society at large, there was genuine distaste for people with an intellectual bent. That foolish World Cyber War had all but destroyed the human will to push the boundaries of intellect and discovery. But Sonja Bellesario was different. She was bright, intuitive in a way that Sergei wished he could emulate, and innovative. Her daring ideas about space exploration and extraterrestrial life—so unusual in this place—appealed to Sergei’s own brand of recklessness. Then too, she was good-looking. Despite his own tendency to self-absorption, Sergei was enthralled with her beauty. Alas, mused Sergei, what started out heatedly had now cooled significantly. He did not know why.

Perhaps, now that he could start on his thesis research in earnest, he could devote more attention to her. He knew she appreciated intelligence, and his planned research topic was bound to excite her interest. Sonja liked listening to his ideas on building a spaceship engine capable of taking humanity to the stars—a hyperspace drive. She was one of those rare people who genuinely had an itch to go out into space. Most of the world was still trying to recover a sense of normalcy after the devastating war. Sergei knew he could make her dream come true. He was sure of it.

What Sergei did not appreciate was the inevitability of Sonja’s growing ambivalence toward him. Even the breakthrough in interstellar space travel that he planned to bring forth would not win back her affection.

His Lynk remained silent, and Sergei had to give up for the moment his plans for the evening. He pocketed the unit and walked out of the Space Physics Department building. The downtown Toronto sky scape spread out before him, the CN Tower dominating the city’s architectural profile. Leaving the campus compound, he walked the three blocks to his apartment where he showered and changed into some more comfortable tunic and slacks. A second try to reach Sonja was unsuccessful so Sergei resigned himself to a solo dinner at his favorite pub, the Clock and Candle. He would see her tomorrow, he knew, at the post-Commencement convocation. Sonja was graduating, with honors, with a doctorate in astrobiology—well deserved, Sergei faintly acknowledged to himself.

That brought back a persistent worry. Sonja would likely be leaving Toronto. She had applied for several post-doc positions, only one of which was in Toronto. That one was her least favorite, he knew. Dare he hope that she would take the Toronto appointment? Well, he thought, if she didn’t then he would have to follow his planned course without her.

* * *

As the last strains of the Commencement postlude ended, and the graduates mingled with family and friends, Sergei spotted Sonja conversing with two of her girlfriends. He began to push his way through the crowd. Sonja turned his way and saw him. She spoke something to her friends and started toward him with a happy expression on her face. Sergei was relieved. As she came within earshot, they both spoke at once.

“Oh, Sergei, I’m so happy, I got…”

 “I tried to call you last night…”

Confused smiles and embarrassed sentence fragments ensued as each tried to recover the momentum. Sonja got the upper hand.

“Sergei, I got the post doc position at CETL!” She put her hand on his and smiled warmly. “I’m so excited—it means I’ll be able to pursue my ideas on exploring the use of radio-enhanced telepathy as a tool to contact extraterrestrial civilizations. If any exist, that is… Anyway, I’m gonna’ accept the post-doc position. I leave for Kansas City in just a few days.” Sonja put as much spunk in her voice as possible. She still hoped Sergei would crawl out of himself into the real world and congratulate her.

“Hey, that’s great Sonja.” Sergei did try hard to sound enthusiastic, his normally downturned, thin lips attempting a wider smile. But his heart fell and in moments he had switched emotional tracks. His mission surged into the vacuum being left by Sonja. Aloud, and with a little more honesty, he repeated, “Sonja, I am happy for you. But you’re going to miss the big event: I passed my orals and I get to start on my hyperdrive research project right away! I think I can finish my dissertation in less than two years.”

“Sergei! That’s good news too. Well, we can always keep each other informed on our research through the blogosphere, or email. I do wish you success, you know.”

“Yeah, I know. But I’m really going to have to dig into this and I won’t have much time for a personal life anyway.”

“Oh Sergei, don’t be such a stick in the mud. C’mon, let’s go celebrate—for both of us!” This was Sonja’s nice side speaking. Anyway, she thought, this would probably be the last time they would see each other. It was time to make the break official.

“Well, okay. Where do you think…?

“How about the CN Tower? Have you ever been to the top? You get a great view of the city from there. And there is a super 360-degree revolving restaurant.”

“I guess that’d be fun—I’ve never been up to the top. Uh, can we go Dutch on dinner?” Sergei wasn’t short on money but there were some big expenses coming up for his research and he wanted to save as much as possible on ordinary expenses.

Suppressing a frown Sonja replied, “Yeah, okay… Come by my place at seven and we can take the free tram.” If he’s going to be such a tight wad, then I can play that game as well. The tram would take twice as long as a taxi, but it would be too loud with excited city-goers to have a conversation. She would be spared a little while from Sergei’s inevitable monologue.

The tram, it turned out, wasn’t too noisy for conversation, and Sergei asked Sonja about her planned research into radio-telepathy. Then he even listened to her. So, Sonja was in a pretty good frame of mind as they stepped off the tram and walked the half block to the entrance of the Tower. The air was fresh and there was a faint fishy smell this near the lake. Even with the sunshine that day—after several days of rain—the early May air was cool. Sonja pulled her jacket close as they walked along.

“Hey, I just noticed: the tower isn’t lit up as it often is.”

“I think it has to do with bird migrations,” Sonja replied. “I read that with the recent storms making bad weather for flying a lot of migratory birds headed for parts further north have been lying low at Thompson Park. The news link quoted a park official saying that with the clearing weather today once nightfall hits a lot of birds will pick up and head north again. So, they probably have doused the lights to help the birds out. Too bad, though, since the city lights are fabulous from the observation decks.”

“Well, we’ll be too busy talking anyway. I want to tell you about my latest discovery. Uh…and hear more about your research.” Sonja grimaced and said nothing. Well, I had my chance to talk on the tram, so I guess it’s his turn. Sonja could put up with one more evening of Sergei’s soliloquy. She planned to make a definite break with him by the end of the evening.

They purchased lift tickets and took the elevator up 115 stories to the restaurant level. As they ascended in the glass windowed elevator car, the city’s skyscrapers fanned out below them on the left; the Inner Harbour filled their view to the right. Sonja pointed out the skinny, needle-like shadow of the Tower cast by the late afternoon sun. The image aligned almost perfectly with the ribbon of rail lines that condensed into a single line in a northeast direction as they left Union Station below. The din of downtown commerce and traffic could not be heard.

Sonja had called ahead for reservations, so they were seated almost immediately. They had good seats, on the outer perimeter next to the glass windows. There weren’t too many people in the restaurant this night and they were in a section where there were still some vacant tables. It was quiet and for a moment neither spoke. They each were caught up with the stupendous view as the restaurant slowly rotated, repainting the view moment by moment. It was a clear evening, and the sun was setting to the west. Even with the supposed voluntary Fatal Light Awareness Program there were a few non-conforming downtown skyscrapers beginning to sparkle in the twilight. They ordered drinks and made small talk for a while.

Sonja studied Sergei’s face. It was narrow, with deep-set, furtive black eyes that tended to squint under angular eyebrows. He had a determined chin, long narrow nose, and small ears that were almost unnoticeable. His curly brown hair was unkempt in appearance, though not by intention, she was sure. Sergei’s shabby appearance belied his great intelligence. She wondered how she had fallen for him in the first place, and how she was going to manage breaking off the relationship tonight.

After ordering their meal Sergei launched into his latest idea. Sonja noted with relief that his typically dour countenance reverted to a more open expression, as often happened when he was describing something of significant importance or interest to him.

“You know that I have been studying the principles around the Alcubierre hyperdrive, right?”

“Yes, you told me all about that last week. I mean,” she corrected her tone, “I remember the cool idea about warping space in front of and behind a spaceship.” As an astrobiologist, Sonja was not as keen on the how to get to planets orbiting other star systems so much as what you would find upon arrival.

Sergei didn’t notice her implied weariness. “Yes! Well, there is a problem with communication with the outside when you are in the local space bubble created by the drive. That is, ordinary electromagnetic signals travel only at the speed of light so any communication with planets at your points of origin or destination would take many lightyears whereas the ship could travel between interstellar locations in a matter of weeks.”

“Well, how does the spaceship know where it is then? How does it stay on course?”

“That’s exactly the point of my research. Ever since Wells and Sullivan perfected their technique two years ago to send information via tachyons, I have been wondering how to use their ideas to achieve hyperspace navigation. Yesterday I came up with something that I think will make a breakthrough.”

“What?” Sonja couldn’t help getting interested. She so earnestly wanted to go to the stars someday, as far off as that seemed to be. Maybe Sergei was smart enough to do it. She had once overheard two of his professors remarking on his intellectual prowess and the rather miraculous knowledge he seemed to have.

“Oh, that’s a secret!” Sergei suppressed a chuckle. “But I’ll let you in on part of it. Anyway, I don’t have it all figured out. But it has to do with creating a local wormhole through which ordinary matter or energy can pass.”

“A wormhole! How do you create a wormhole? I thought those were things that existed at the center of black holes and that no light could escape them once it entered.”

“Yeah, wormholes were once thought to occur at the center of a black hole. But the consensus now is that in some sense they may be all around you. Some physicists even as far back as the 20th century speculated that there could be sub-sub-microscopic wormholes everywhere. You’ve heard of quantum gravity and quantum foam, haven’t you?”

“Yes… But you know cosmology is certainly not my area of specialty. As an undergraduate I took a survey course that included a section on general relativity and quantum theory. I remember the gist was that the 4-dimensional spacetime of human experience is in fact a membrane, or brane-world, in a higher dimensional spacetime and that gravity can spread out into a higher dimension making it appear relatively weak in our sensory world. I also remember learning that around the time I was born experiments with the VLHC in Geneva discovered the graviton. My professor pointed out that although Einstein’s General Relativity theory required the graviton to be a massless particle, if it could move in higher dimensions it would appear to us to have mass on our 4D brane. And that is exactly what they found with the VLHC, gravitons with mass.”

“That’s right, Sonja. Good memory! Discovery of the graviton revealed a higher dimensionality to spacetime. There are still competing theories to fully explain quantum gravity but all of them show that spacetime is quantized, resulting in the indeterminacy associated with quantum mechanics. Anyway, at the Planck length the geometry and topology of spacetime becomes probabilistic. I suppose that this indeterminacy led to the moniker quantum foam. There would be a kind of surging sea of geometric discontinuities, each occurring with different probabilities. These could include local discontinuities in spacetime through which passages from one part of the spacetime matrix to a distant one could spontaneously form. These could, in fact, traverse a higher spatial dimension and would be like what we would call a wormhole. The passages, of course, would still be quantum scale in size. But what if you could reach down and capture such a wormhole and bring it up to classical size? Bring it up to a size corresponding to the wavelength of normal electromagnetic communications?”

“Can you do that?” Sonja couldn’t help being impressed. Then, remembering how the conversation had started, she asked, “What about the tachyons? What do they have to do with it?”

Sergei was pleased that he had caught Sonja’s full attention. “Wow, Sonja, you’re sharp! Most of the others just don’t seem to understand. You’ve hit on the secret!” He asserted this last with an innocent simplicity that belied his age. He was some ten years or older than Sonja—another puzzling fact about him in Sonja’s eyes. Why had it taken him so long to get to this stage of his academic career, she wondered? She had never felt comfortable asking that. Sergei went on, “My theory is that, rather than being a faster-than-light particle, tachyons are a kind of ordinary boson that either creates or latches on to quantum-scale wormholes. To us, at classical scale levels, we think they are travelling at superluminal speeds over large distances. In reality, they are normal light-speed particles that capture and ride through quantum wormholes that extend over what to us appear to be great distances. But, in fact, the tachyons are just taking a short cut through a higher dimension. Anyway, that is what my research project is going to be about. If I am successful, you will be the first to know.”

Sergei did not want to say more, and fortunately at that point their dinner arrived. The restaurant had rotated around by this time to give a magnificent view of Lake Ontario that shone dully in the light of the rising moon—it was just past full that evening. They both stared silently at the glass-encased view while the waiter laid out their food.

After dinner ended while they waited for their checks, Sonja tried to direct Sergei away from his pet theme. “Hey, you wanna’ go out on the observation deck? It’s amazing—there is a glass floor that you can walk on and look all the way down to the ground.”

“Okay,” Sergei responded, without much conviction. He wanted to continue their discussion, but he could tell Sonja was getting restless.

After paying, they took the elevator down a level and walked out onto the observation deck. There was a mixture of people there, some of them oohing and aahing at the views. Others walked slowly around the tower deck, their thoughts unexpressed. Tourists with children, senior citizens, a couple of students like themselves, here and there a lone man or woman who probably didn’t want to be there but were anyway because they had no one to be with and this is what people did when they were lonely. While Sergei dawdled, taking in the sights and sounds that were so different from the restaurant above them, Sonja walked briskly around the perimeter.

“Sergei, come along,” she motioned. “I want you to see the glass floor.” Sergei pushed his way past a couple of oblivious teenagers and joined Sonja at the edge of what initially seemed to be a gridded floor, with nothing between the grids. He was so caught up with his thoughts that he did not hear her description. He gasped, as she stepped right out onto what at first seemed clear air. Then he realized his mistaken perception, seeing the glass floor for what it was. Still, he hesitated momentarily before joining Sonja in the middle of the clear expanse. There was a fleeting sensation of vertigo as Sergei adjusted his vision to focus on the ground over a thousand feet below. Off to the right was a large stadium, its garish lights flooding a green field on which moved tiny, ant-like figures. Sonja explained that it was Rogers Centre, home to the Toronto Blue Jays. It was a night game, just getting started. Not being a baseball fan, Sergei hadn’t clue who was playing.

Sonja did. “It’s the Blue Jays playing the Royals! Tonight’s game is the last of a four-day series and the Jays are poised to sweep the Royals!” Sonja was almost gushing with enthusiasm, Sergei noted. She was obviously a dedicated fan. “But in division play they aren’t doing so well. Anyway, I better start switching loyalties and root for the Royals tonight. You know… I’m going to Kansas City next week.” Her voice dropped as she looked up at Sergei and she wished she hadn’t rubbed it in. The strains of that old blues song began to run through her mind again. Goin to—Kansas City… She recovered herself, realizing that this was as good a segue as any into what she needed to say to Sergei tonight.

Sergei walked to the parapet and looked out through the glass observation windows to the city and the waterfront. Sonja followed him and stood beside him. “Sergei,” she hesitated, but then continued firmly. “Sergei, you’re a good friend and colleague in scientific research, but… But that’s all. I have appreciated the relationship as far as it has gone. But I think you may be more serious about this than I am, and I just don’t want to continue down that road. We both have our research to pursue and I, for one, am not ready for any complicating emotional entanglements.” She hesitated. “Do you understand?”

“Yeah, I get it. I knew you felt that way anyway. I was just hoping…”

“Look, we’re in similar fields,” she cut in. “I hope we see each other occasionally at conferences or symposia. I am interested in your research, and I wish you great success. I do! Even a little selfishly. There’s nothing I’d like better than to have a chance in my lifetime to get off this planet!” With that Sonja hoped to change the subject.

“Yeah, I do agree with that. It would be great to get off this planet!” Sergei turned to her and forced a smile. “You…”

He did not finish his sentence. There was a loud boom, followed by several sharp staccato cracking sounds. The deck floor seemed to jump several inches and then the whole structure was swaying back and forth. The lights blinked off, then flickered on again. Sergei saw pieces of material, ceiling perhaps, flying down around the people near him. One elderly gentleman was struck and fell to his knees. There were screams and even curses, and someone shouted “Earthquake!” The lights went out, blinked on again momentarily, and then went out and stayed out. There was the sound of running water somewhere.

Sergei looked for Sonja, but she was nowhere to be seen in the darkened area around him. He was disoriented, faltering, trying to keep himself upright. An eerie blue glow from the baseball game suffused upward through the transparent deck a few meters away. He idly wondered whether the game was still going on. The tower continued to sway in periodic motion. The glass observation window behind him cracked, then split open. A rushing wind from outside caused him to stumble forward toward the glass floor. Sergei saw people instinctively move away from it when suddenly an entire panel of glass broke loose and plummeted to earth. There was a child, a girl no more than 10 years of age, who had fallen and was sliding ominously toward the deck’s maw. Sergei watched, marveling because the girl just didn’t get up and run. The wind from behind him was rushing through the ruined floor, trying to take the child with it.

The tower continued to sway back and forth. It seemed to go on forever. Another lurch and bump threw Sergei to the floor, and toward the little girl. Without knowing why, he reached out and grabbed her ankle just as she was about to go through the break. At the same time a large metal panel fell beside him, a piece of it coming loose and striking him a glancing blow across the side of his head. The last thing he remembered was hearing someone shout, “You saved her!” and then feeling rough hands on his own legs pulling him backwards. Something wet flooded into his eyes and he blacked out.

* * *

Sergei awoke. There was something on the side of his head. He turned his head to see what it was, but something restrained his movement. Then he realized he was in a bed. Everything was white. White ceiling. He was on his back, looking up. White walls and white sheets, at least as much as he could see. He felt woozy, felt like lapsing back into listlessness. Instead, a surge of determination took possession and his thoughts coalesced. Someone approached.

“Where am I?” Sergei croaked more than spoke.

“You’re in a hospital,” said a voice in white.

“Why?”

“There was an earthquake. You got a concussion. The rescuers brought you here. You and a hundred others. Hospitals all over town have taken in folks who were in the Tower.” The nurse spoke in matter of fact, punctuated tones—as if she (or was it he?) were an automated medical attendant. “Some weren’t so lucky as you…”

Then the events atop the CN Tower began to come back to Sergei. “There was a friend with me,” he blurted out. “Is she…?”

“You mean Sonja?” The nurse winked at him. She leaned over so that Sergei saw her amused face clearly and saw that she was not a machine after all.

“No! I mean yes!” He meant, no she is not that kind of friend that deserved the wink, but yes, she was a friend, a colleague. He remembered the whole painful conversation with Sonja just before the earthquake. “Yes,” he said. “Sonja Bellesario, a fellow grad student—scientist—from the university. Is she all right?”

“Yes, she is fine—very fine,” and she winked again. To Sergei this nurse just wouldn’t give up. Maybe she had a nervous eye. The nurse continued, “Your Sonja was here this morning to check in on you. She’s been coming every day for the last three days. Today she was a little concerned because she must leave town tomorrow and she was worried you would not wake up before she left. Actually, I think she was worried you were not going to wake up at all.” Another wink. “You’ve been out for three days, you know.”

“You mean she was not injured in the earthquake?” A pause. “Out for three days?” Then, again, “How did I get here?” Sergei still could not quite grasp what had happened. He had never experienced an earthquake. Lurid images winked in and out of his mind as he remembered the breaking glass, the staggering people, the rushing wind. That terrible, sucking wind! Then he remembered the little girl. Why on earth did he try to grab her? He could have fallen through the broken floor himself by doing that. Confused thoughts threaded themselves through his mind, obscuring the thin patch of consciousness in front of him, which was threatening to slip away. He could no longer form words, and only stared at the nurse.

The nurse started to speak but thought better of it. “You need to rest now. I’ve given you a sedative in your IV. Sonja said she would stop in again tomorrow morning. I’m sure you two will be able to visit a little while then.” With that the nurse disappeared from Sergei’s sight. Fortunately, she did not wink with that last statement. He let go of his racing thoughts and sank back into a dreamless sleep.

Morning came and Sergei felt a lot better. At least until he had a basic breakfast of porridge and apple juice. A minor spell of nausea at that point threatened to ruin what otherwise appeared to be a sunny, bright day. His room sported a window looking out to a green lawn and shade trees that were just finishing putting on their summer finery. He gazed at the blue sky. The nausea passed. There was a knock at his door. He managed to say, “Come in,” without turning his head to see who it was. He couldn’t do that anyway. It was Sonja.

“Sergei!” she exclaimed. “Welcome back to the land of the living. How do you feel?” She came to his bedside, feeling a weight lift from her chest. There were many who had fared so much worse.

“Well, okay, I guess. Considering, anyway, that I have no idea what happened to me. I mean, I know there was an earthquake… But what happened to you? You’re okay, I guess? How did I get here?” Sergei’s energy level was not up to normal, and his thoughts were still a bit random.

Sonja chuckled. “One question at a time. But first, can I get you anything? Something to drink?” She noticed the dryness in his voice.

“Yeah, I could use a drink. The glass on the table there is empty,” he motioned with his eyes. The neck and head brace had been loosened somewhat but still pretty much constrained his movement. Sonja disappeared for a moment and then brought back from the nurse’s station a full tumbler of ice water with a straw in it. She handed the glass to Sergei and sat down beside the hospital bed.

“Sergei,” she said, “you’re a bit of a hero. You rescued a little girl from falling to her death through the broken glass floor. I saw what happened, but I was too far away from you and her to do anything. Some people were not so lucky.” Her face fell as she remembered the terrible sight of a man falling from the wide ledge above the Tower’s main pod, the so-called Edge Walk. Normally harnessed, there was no danger to patrons from falling, but they must have been in the process of unhooking someone when the earthquake hit. Or maybe a strap broke from the force of it. She shuddered at the thought of falling 1200 feet to your death.

“Hero, huh? I guess I’m just lucky to be alive. What happened to you?”

“Really, Sergei! You’re a local hero. It’s on all the news links. Her family wants to come to the hospital to thank you, but they haven’t let them so far—until you are better.” Sergei groaned: all the news links? That was not good. Aloud, he said, “I don’t really want to see them. It was nothing. I think she just sort of fell into my hands and I grabbed her. That’s all.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll think better of it after a few more days of recovery. As for me, I guess I was lucky too. That first jolt knocked me to the floor, and I just started scrambling away from the parapet as fast as I could, on my hands and knees. Stuff was falling from the ceiling, but it missed me. I saw the piece that came down and hit you. It was a good thing because it fell across the place in the glass floor that broke open and blocked anyone else from falling through. Then, the next thing I knew was that someone was pulling me toward an inner room where some others were huddled. I got under a table and waited it out.

“So much of what happened the rest of that night is still a blur. The rescuers came and I didn’t know where you were. I was unhurt, so after a paramedic examined me in a triage center at the base of the Tower, I was released. I asked where you might be but, of course, no one knew. All was confusion. The next day, after calling around, I found where they took you.”

There was an uncomfortable silence between them. Sergei tried to adjust the bandage on his head. Sonja looked at her watch. Finally, she spoke again. “Sergei, I was supposed to leave for Kansas City today. I was going to take the Maglev, but they have shut down the route from Toronto to Chicago until they can inspect all the right of way for damage. So, I’m going to fly. My plane leaves this afternoon at 4.”

“Yeah, I know. Good luck in KC.” He stared out the window at the shaded lawn, lost in thought. There was an awkward silence. But Sonja had made up her mind.

“Well, I better get moving. I still have some packing to do and transportation to the airport is still iffy with all the damage to some of the highways. It was a 6.2 earthquake—about the largest ever here.” Sonja stood and shook his hand with a friendly goodbye gesture. “I’m glad you’re better, Sergei. Let’s keep in touch,” she said the last without much conviction. What else could she say at this point? The earthquake had somehow punctuated her disavowal of a few nights before and that was the end of it. She turned and left.

Chapter 3. CETL

Early June, 2052 CE. Kansas City, North American Federation.

“Hi, Janet? It’s Sonja!” Sonja cradled her Lynk between shoulder and ear as she finished buttoning a summer blouse. It was going to be hot today and Kansas City weather was quite a bit warmer than Toronto.

“Sonja! Hey, awesome to hear your voice. Uh, where are you?”

“I’m in Kansas City. Just arrived.”

“Awesome! I mean, I wondered when or, gosh, even if you would get here. I mean, with the earthquake and all. What happened? Are you all right? Well, I guess you are, or you wouldn’t be here. You’ll have to…”

“Tell you all about it,” finished Sonja. Sometimes you just needed to cut in on Janet. Once she took off, she didn’t seem to know how to land. “Yes,” she repeated, “I’ll tell you and I bet you won’t believe it. When can we get together? I’m still unpacking, and I’ve got to go out and get some things for my apartment.”

“Oh, right way girl, right away. But, uh oh, no can’t be tonight. I’ve got a heavy date… Uh, well you’ll just love Bart. I only just met him and, well more of that later. So, not tonight, and tomorrow night is my book club—we’re reading Franklin’s “To the Stars”. Hey, you’d like that book, have you read it already? It’s fascinating what they think we are going to do in the next 50 years. But it’s fiction, not real life. Anyway, how about day after tomorrow? It’s some war holiday and I have the day off. We could meet at this new coffee shop in the old Union Station and catch up on stuff.”

“That would be great, Janet. I can’t wait to see you. Union Station is just down the street from my apartment complex. What time, then? Say, 12 noon?”

“Yeah, that works fine. I’ll catch the tram downtown. I live out in the suburbs you know.”

“Okay, see you then.”

“Bye.”

The line went dead on the other end and Sonja pocketed her Lynk. Janet could talk your ear off, but Sonja needed some irrelevant distractions to help her get settled. Janet was just what she needed. The intensity of her departure from Toronto, and Sergei, still weighed upon her. And on Monday she would have her first day at the Center, starting with a meeting with her advisor and mentor-to-be for the next two years, Dr. Spitzer.

CETL was located on the former site of the Liberty Memorial that had been dedicated in 1926 to the men and women who served in World War I. In the turbulent years following the 2037 war, neo-anarchists had dynamited the memorial and WWI museum, claiming that it was a symbol of the false hope of peace among all nations, as was demonstrated once again in the recent war. The University subsequently purchased the grounds and remaining structures to house the new CETL facilities as well as the Center for Space Flight.

Walking now from her apartment, located near the CETL facilities, Sonja passed by the remains of the Memorial on her way to the small shopping mall at the old Union Station. All that was left was the lower half of the tower atop the Memorial, which had supported an artificial flame, and one of the buildings at its base. It was ironic that the Great Frieze situated behind the Memorial on the north side and below the tower had, for the most part, also escaped the anarchists’ anger. It was a series of bas-relief sculptured panels depicting the journey of the then United States from war to peace in the early 20th century.

On a whim, Sonja angled to her left and walked up the sloping sidewalk to where the frieze portion of the Memorial still reminded folks of war’s horrors and the beauty of the peace that was to come. It has yet to come, she mused rather sourly, as she surveyed the sculpted, limestone panels. A huge center panel portrayed Liberty, who symbolized peace and understanding. A series of panels flanked Liberty to the left and the right. On the left were scenes of war’s destruction and misery, patriotism and sacrifice, and those who did not return. To the right of Liberty the panorama continued, now with a more hopeful message. The first one depicted men turning the instruments of war into those of peace. Then came various panels setting forth a confidence in the virtues of home, the abundance of nature, and a coming prosperity. Above the panels were four biblical inscriptions, from left to right, describing the inevitability of war, the promise of peace, the obligation upon mankind to secure that peace, and the ultimate certainty of blessing and abundance. Above all that, running the full length of the 150-meter-long entablature, was the inscription:

“These have dared bear the torches of sacrifice and service. Their bodies return to dust but their work liveth evermore. Let us strive on to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

Well, Sonja thought with no small degree of skepticism, it’s been 130 years since this memorial was erected and the world since then has endured a half dozen major world wars or large-scale conflicts, to say nothing of the multitude of regional hostilities. She wondered whether it was brave hope or hopeless ignorance that motivated people to build memorials such as this one. Maybe both. She recalled the ironic words from a song that she had heard in the Toronto Museum of Language and Culture, just before leaving to come to Kansas City. The museum placard indicated the recording was by a long-ago 20th century folk singer by the name of Joan Baez. To Sonja her voice had a haunting presence that seemed to still speak almost a century later:

The First World War, boys / It came and it went / The reason for fighting / I never did get.

But I learned to accept it /Accept it with pride / For you don’t count the dead /When God’s on your side.

Sonja wondered whether God was engaged that way in the affairs of mankind. For her part, she was experiencing a heightened social conscience as she slowly emerged from the sterile halls of academia and the intense focus of graduate studies. A nascent moral sense in her was beginning to protest the depredations of mankind upon both itself and nature. Personal relationships as well as events in the world at large were shaping her maturing views. She thought of Sergei Levkov. He seemed to typify the greedy, self-seeking attitudes that had landed the world in such a mess. A momentary pang of conscience surfaced within her as she remembered how she had encouraged him in his dreams of building a ship to go to the stars, for her own selfish reasons. Why did she want to go to the stars, anyway? Was it just boredom with her life or was there some deeper meaning to this compulsion? Yes, there was a growing sense of despair regarding the future of the planet. She wondered if the best hope for humanity might be to start anew—on a new planet orbiting a new star, far from Earth and its travails. Of course I’m not so naïve to think that merely transporting people to a new world would by itself be a solution. That’s been tried before on this very continent, and without notable success. However, perhaps humanity has progressed to the point now where a brand new and virgin world would at least clear the air and give people a chance to take stock of themselves and of what did and did not work.

But, no! That was not the reason for her yearning get off this planet, or at least not all of it. She had been drawn to the stars in her dreams and phantasies ever since she was old enough to know what she was looking at when she gazed into the numinous night sky. There was life out there, a life for her, though what this half-believed conviction meant or would lead to she did not know. But to hang her hopes for this on Sergei? Surely that was a fool’s errand! Sometimes she thought his selfishness and avarice would end up destroying his obvious genius, bringing down to Earth both himself and the hope of space travel. The thought of it seemed to tarnish the bright hope of her childhood aspirations.

The third biblical inscription over the frieze arrested her attention momentarily:

“What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.”

Not a religious person, Sonja nevertheless felt an agreement within her own soul to this sentiment. She wondered if she could carry out this dictum in the competitive and often self-serving world of scientific research that she was about to enter.

* * *

Sonja hurried to complete the notes from her latest experimental run. She had been at the Center for three months now, and things were going rather well. She cautioned herself to not be too optimistic, however. While she felt good about her research, she knew that from external appearances she still had little to show. Unhappy with her seemingly slow progress, Sonja knew she still must prove herself, both to her colleagues and to her superior. She had a meeting with the Director in ten minutes and it would be unwise to be late. Director Eleanor Spitzer was a brilliant scientist with little patience for mediocrity and sloth. Being late for a meeting was to invite suspicion of one or even both qualities in those who depended upon her good favor, as did Sonja. Closing and locking the door, Sonja turned and hurried down the hall. She paused outside Dr. Spitzer’s office. A fake wood plaque below the frosted window of the glass-paneled door read: “Communications Laboratory” in large black letters, and underneath in smaller capitals, “Center for Extraterrestrial Life.” And, under these words in yet smaller capitals, “North American University.”

CETL was established in 2048, toward the end of a decade-long turbulent aftermath to the World Cyber War. The War lasted only a year with no clear winner. But it resulted in turning the general populace against technology and its alleged benefits. Before the War the Internet of Things—once hailed as the ultimate vehicle for achieving sustainable life on the planet—was now seen by many as not much more than an avenue for international espionage and destruction of the means of livelihood that they had come to depend upon. Much damage had been done to critical infrastructures impacting every sphere of normal life—finance, medical services, communications, transportation and even food delivery in some cases. A world-wide recession followed, lasting almost a decade. Even at this time, some fifteen years after the war, many of the conveniences they once enjoyed were not available. Now 24, Sonja was a child when the war started, but she remembered the driverless car that her father had in Spain. Nowadays it was almost impossible to get one, and the common people still looked upon them with great suspicion. However, one good outcome of the war was the formation of a pan-federation union, the Euro-North-American Union—ENU. The ENU set about to rebuild the electronic and informational infrastructures that would hopefully help restore the prosperity with which the century began.

The formation of CETL was one of the more promising developments of the new era—an era that perhaps would see the advance of humanity into maturity. The North American Federation, a post-war political consolidation of the former United States and Canada, was now financing academic research institutions, after tending to the more basic needs of a war-injured technological society. Sonja, a child growing up in Spain before the war, attended university in Canada, first with an undergraduate degree in communications and then a doctorate in astrobiology. While Sonja was finishing her work in Toronto she heard of a brand-new department, Astropsychology, being formed at CETL. She applied for one of two research positions and, surprisingly to her, was accepted. It seemed to her only yesterday that she had left Toronto.

A stenciled label on the glass panel read in gold letters: Eleanor M. Spitzer, PhD, Director. Underneath her name the glass announced what Dr. Spitzer was director of: Department of Astropsychology, CETL. Sonja hesitated before knocking lightly.

“Come in Sonja. You’re right on time.”

Sonja breathed a sigh of relief and pushed the door open. “Good morning, Dr. Spitzer.”

“Eleanor. Please call me Eleanor. When it comes to science, we’re all equal colleagues here.”

“Yes, Dr. Spitzer…uh, I mean Eleanor. Thank you.”

Dr. Spitzer had recently begun to insist on the first name basis with Sonja and it was still difficult for her to accept. For one thing, Dr. Spitzer—Eleanor—was a very large woman, and she was many years older as evidenced by the slight crows’ feet beginning to form around her eyes. Her short and straight mannish hair style reinforced the sense of distance Sonja felt in her presence. By comparison, Sonja was a little slip of a girl in her own mind, with a streak of Irish pluck inherited from her mother’s side. That side of her personality seemed often at war with the other side, the polite and self-effacing modesty of a Spaniard father. Despite impeccable manners, Don Roberto Bellesario had been an astute and brilliant industrialist. Though Sonja received her above average IQ from her father, she felt her mother’s influence assuaging her fears as she entered Dr. Spitzer’s office.

Spitzer appraised the young woman in front of her. Despite being barely into her twenties, Sonja Bellesario had an intuitive, finely tuned intelligence graciously complemented by a plain but disarming beauty. Spitzer decided that Sonja was somewhat oblivious to the effect she might have on those of the opposite sex. This was good, she knew, for now in her life Sonja needed to focus on establishing her career.

“So, how’s the research on ET communication patterns going?” Dr. Spitzer reached for Sonja’s notes as she handed them to her. She sat tentatively on the edge of a chair beside Dr. Spitzer’s desk.

“Great! At least I think so,” replied Sonja hopefully. “Communication Patterns in Extraterrestrial Societies.” That was her research project, and it was all about how the social and communications structures of extraterrestrial societies would be impacted by differences in planetary and solar environments. That is, if there were extraterrestrial societies anywhere in the galaxy. That was still a big if, she knew, and it sometimes amazed her that the Federation Science Foundation would fund this type of research. Particularly since a component of her research, still unrealized, involved attempting to hear or receive communications from outer space. Sonja was working on a prosthetic device, which she wore like a helmet, which could enhance reception of such signals when used in conjunction with a radio telescope. So far, she had only tested a prototype of her prosthesis using the university’s ten-meter dish. It wasn’t large enough to resolve an expected signal source, and Dr. Spitzer had recommended trying to get observation time at research facilities with larger telescopes.

“Well, I’ll look at this tonight. But right now, I’ve great news for you. We’ve been given time on Green Bank!”

“Time on Green Bank!” Sonja was breathless. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia, was one of the largest radio telescopes in the world. She and Dr. Spitzer had applied to NRAO two months ago, but Sonja had little hope of success. Her proposed project was…well, to put it in the vernacular, it was a bit wacky. “That’s…that’s hard to believe,” Sonja gave a weak smile to Dr. Spitzer, who returned it with a broad grin and thumbs up signs with both hands.

“Look, Sonja, I know you feel a little outclassed here and that your research ideas are somewhat out of the mainstream. But so-called mental telepathy is no longer considered pseudo-science. Not since Alliander’s discovery that ULF radio waves are correlated with thought transmission between humans. Probably animals, too, but we haven’t figured out yet how to talk to animals to find out.” She smiled, a bit crookedly. “Admittedly, there is still much we don’t understand about the so-called psi force or how the human brain can generate and receive electromagnetic signals that become the medium for thought and image transfer. But, that it does—at least in some people—has become clear. Your idea that thought waves from advanced civilizations could be transmitted over galactic distances by radio waves is just a logical extension of this discovery. Besides, remember Penzias and Wilson who accidentally established the existence of the long suspected cosmic microwave background while trying to build a satellite communications telescope. You might end up discovering something you don’t expect!”

* * *

Early Fall, 2052 CE. Kansas City, North American Federation.

Sonja disembarked from the Union Station Maglev and walked slowly down the ramp to street level. Summer was over; it was cool and rainy. She headed for the bus that would take her the short distance to her apartment. She was dejected, and thoroughly embarrassed. Green Bank had been a bust, an out and out flop! Yes, the scenery, the cool mountain air even in summer and the lush smells were all wonderfully different than the Great Plains atmosphere of Kansas City. And amazing things like fireflies, so abundant in the mountain meadows of West Virginia. But so what? Her experiment produced nothing, and she had sensed the condescending attitudes of some of the other researchers there. They were celebrating discoveries nightly, it seemed, while Sonja had nothing. She was probably being too hard on herself, she knew, and Dr. Spitzer might have some encouraging words for her tomorrow. Well, she thought, at least the equipment I ordered came and I set up the headgear.

Sonja’s plan was to use a miniaturized functional MRI machine that would image her own thoughts, together with an ordinary radio receiver interfaced through suitable band pass filters to the output of the Green Bank radio telescope. The part of this that was her own idea was the headgear that enclosed the fMRI coils, and which provided a snug fit to her temples. It was a bit unwieldy because the superconducting magnet coils required an external cryogenic cooling system. This was developed for her by a friend in the campus materials science lab, and it was small enough to carry in a backpack. But the gear worked and that was what counted. Using a computer-based neural network with the fMRI, Sonja had developed a concept dictionary based on her own brain waves. The entries in the dictionary were simple concepts, things like prime numbers, pi, and stick figures of living beings with arms and legs. She did not hope to understand the language of an alien race, but such concepts should or could be universal. Her theory was that the ultra-low frequency radio waves would carry thought patterns of presumed sentient-being societies to the large NRAO dish and thence to her headgear where they would be associated in real-time with her own thought patterns via the neural network software. This much about her experimental apparatus and the theory behind it Dr. Spitzer knew.

What Dr. Spitzer did not know, and what Sonja was determined that she would not find out, was Sonja’s own native telepathic ability. A gift some might call it, though at best a burdensome one. While she could not prove it, nor even discuss it with her colleagues, she believed that her telepathic ability could enhance mental recognition of rational thought patterns that were captured by the telescope and impressed upon her brain by the innovative headgear. It was disconcerting to realize that even if she were successful in her plan, full disclosure of her methodology was not advisable, however much she yearned to do so. She believed she had good reason to be concerned about such a disclosure—notwithstanding Alliander’s seminal work. Sometimes she wished she’d never been so gifted and wondered why.

Since her earliest memories of childhood Sonja had been aware that the thoughts she sometimes had were not her own. There were times when thoughts came to her that seemed very much outside of her—yet they were right inside her head. It was with her mother that she first began to realize that the strange thoughts were those of another. She and her mother were very close in those days. As a child, she would sometimes hear an almost audible voice speaking inside her as her mother entered her playroom. The voice would always say the same thing: ~You are such a sweet, bubbly little angel! Then, amazingly, her mother would take her up in her arms and whisper into her ear, “You are such a sweet, bubbly little angel!” By the time she was six she heard in her mind other things her mother thought—sometimes things that she instinctively knew she was not supposed to hear. So, she hid this strange ability from her parents and from her younger brother, Tony. Strangely, she never heard anything that would seem to have come from others in the family. Only with her mom.

But, in school, there were others whom she realized she could eavesdrop on, though often intermittently. This did not make her happy, for it seemed wrong. She could do nothing about that, however, and the thoughts of others were often painful or brought up things she could not understand. As Sonja neared adolescence the periodic intrusion of foreign thoughts began to plague her, especially since they would get in the way of friendships. Friendships were important and she did not want to know things that friends thought unless they told her directly. In a clumsy attempt to get help, Sonja decided to confide in her best friend her ability in the hope that her friend could help her deal with her difficulty. One of the reasons that Susanne was her best friend, in fact, was that she could not read Susanne’s thoughts. It was a real friendship, or so she thought. One day at lunch the teacher sent the class out to the academy lawn to eat. Sonja and Susanne found a place under a large spreading cork tree and sat down in its shade. Earlier that day there had been a spat between two of the girls in their class, Teresa and Sophie. Sonja was nearby and could not help overhearing. She also knew what Teresa was thinking but not saying out loud. Teresa was one of those few people with whom Sonja had a connection though she was not a particular friend. The spat was about a boy, of course, and Teresa was telling Sophie that Brad did not care for her and that she, Teresa, was going to go out with Brad instead. Sophie blew up at this (she was hot-tempered) and slapped Teresa, saying that it was not true, and that Brad was going out with her. It turned into a scratching and screaming fight that took two teachers to break up. But the thing that was most unsettling to Sonja was that she had been able to read Teresa’s thoughts and she understood that Teresa was lying to Sophie and had deliberately done so to get back at her for getting a better grade in history. So silly, Sonja now thought, thinking back on her adolescence.

It was what happened next that set the course for Sonja for the rest of her life up to now, her resolve to never disclose to anyone her ability. During that lunch period under the cork tree she had confided to Susanne her ability to read the minds of some people. She had gone so far as to tell her that she had known that Teresa was lying to Sophie. Susanne didn’t believe her and said she was just making it up. She got up and started to walk away. At first, Sonja misunderstood her friend’s reaction. But as Susanne started to get up without saying where she was going words came unbidden into Sonja’s mind. ~Oh, pooh, I’m thirsty and I forgot to bring a bottle of water. Sonja figured that Susanne was going to get a drink from the fountain across the lawn. “Susanne,” she said, “You can have my bottle of water—I am not thirsty.” She said this without even thinking, momentarily forgetting that she had never read Susanne’s mind. Susanne had turned then and stared at her at first speechless, mouth agape.

“You…” Susanne stuttered, “You can do it! You knew my thoughts! How did you know I was going to get a drink? I didn’t tell you that.”

Sonja couldn’t reply. She was almost as amazed as Susanne.

Susanne’s surprise then turned to pique. “You’re my best friend. Best friends should not do that to each other! I can’t read your thoughts. It’s not fair.” Then came the crushing blow: “I don’t want to be your friend anymore. Stay out of my thoughts!” With that Susanne turned and ran across the lawn leaving the remains of her lunch next to a large, exposed root. The loss of her best friend, however, was not the worst of it. Susanne then told Sophie about Teresa’s deception and told her how she knew. By the time it was over, all three of them had ganged up on Sonja and had made life miserable for her for the rest of the term. It was fortunate there were only a few weeks left before summer holidays and she begged her mother to send her to a different school the following year.

It wasn’t until Sonja went to university in Toronto that she could make a semblance peace with herself about her telepathy, and even to begin to see it in a positive light. It was Herman Alliander’s work in paranormal psychology that helped turn the tide of Sonja’s own sense of worth. His, and other researchers as well. University had opened an entirely new world to Sonja with its easy culture of scientific discourse and intellectual freedom. Sonja devoured the current literature on parapsychology and even went to hear Alliander speak once. Reflecting on Dr. Spitzer’s mention of Alliander’s work, Sonja suspected she knew far more about the subject than Dr. Spitzer. And, while she did not fully understand the connection of low frequency radio waves to mental telepathy, she knew that the latter was real and that she did not need special coils to enable her to read thoughts. To her, the low frequency radio apparatus was a means of amplifying the feeble signals of mental thought waves that she conceived might come from other, and possibly more advanced civilizations in another part of the galaxy. So far it was just theory that the fMRI and neural network would enhance communication. But, if the headset she designed would amplify a signal that was there, she was confident she would be able to read it.

Besides, she thought, with my apparatus I could use my ability to benefit mankind without risk of exposure and the consequent pain of rejection that I experienced when I was young. This, at last, will be what makes it acceptable. If there are advanced civilizations out there and if I could contact them perhaps, I could help bring to mankind knowledge that would bring lasting peace between belligerent nations. Or knowledge that would grant humans the key to interstellar travel so that those who are tired of the fighting (as I am) could get off the planet and go somewhere else.

One side of Sonja’s mind knew this was naïve and simplistic, but she persisted. That was why she was initially attracted to Sergei—because of his ideas about space travel. He was so sure about it that at times it seemed as if he had already managed it. But Sergei misunderstood her interest and she had been a little too naïve. That kind of relationship could not last.

As she walked down the ramp from the KC Central Maglev station and thought of Sergei, she wondered how he was doing. Then she remembered that conversation with him in the restaurant atop the CN Tower. What was it he said about quantum wormholes and electromagnetic signals passing through them? Could I somehow adapt my apparatus to capture signals that came through quantum wormholes? She decided to send Sergei a note when she got back to her apartment. It had to be a strictly professional request. She would phrase her message so as not to reignite something that wasn’t meant to be.

Chapter 4. Colony

Planet Mycenae, Apollo System. Local Date: Circ 1, Late Summer.

Cunningham was livid. Tang had promised to send down two more of the ship’s micro-fusion power supplies. That was two months ago, and still nothing! He resolved to go back up to the Exeter and confront Tang, as much as he disliked the journey from the planet’s surface to the orbiting starship. While taking an aircar to the space dock from New Athens City, Roger Cunningham thought back on the rapid events of the last six months. Six months Earth time that is. Their new home had an orbital period around its star that was almost exactly two-thirds that of Earth around Sol. They would have to figure out a new calendar and periods that worked in the new world. That would come in time. In general Cunningham was satisfied with the progress they had achieved in beginning this world’s colonization. It wasn’t the planet or the star system they originally intended. Or the historical era either, he thought, a bit ruefully. But so what! They wanted to distance themselves from Earth and its potpourri of mutually distrustful federations, political positioning, and constant threat of war or economic bust. Of course, a few tens of lightyears now between them and Earth were not a sufficient barrier with modern star travel technology. At that distance they would never be able to isolate themselves the way they had wanted to. Except… Three hundred odd years separation from the society they had abandoned—that was a different story! If it was true, he thought. Such concepts as time travel were difficult for him, an economist by training and a politician at heart.

After his people recovered from the initial shock (and anger at Captain Tang and his cantankerous crew) most of them were quite pleased. Yes, there were a few of his colonists, former Exeter crew, who bemoaned never seeing their loved ones again. He did sympathize with them. But they needed to realize that their loved ones hadn’t even been born yet.

Cunningham paused to mull that one over. He was a pragmatist. But he did have to admit to himself that it was hard even for him to fully get a hold on how to adjust to this new reality—colonizing a world only 36 lightyears from Earth during a period on Earth before space travel had even been achieved. One thing for sure: besides not having to hear about Earth’s troubles in the 24th century (which hadn’t happened yet) they wouldn’t be receiving any help or supplies from the Earth of this era either. Or any other era. They were on their own! And that was where Roger Cunningham would find his greatness, his place in history! For, if he was anything at all he was a consummate survivalist.

His aircar arrived at the crudely constructed space dock and he leveraged his bulky frame out of the car and onto the deck. He paused to check his appearance in the reflection of the aircar glass, noting with satisfaction this morning’s trim on his mustache. Part of his reason for the mustache, he admitted to himself, was to offer a distraction from his rather large Roman nose and otherwise plain face. His wife, bless her heart, sometimes teased him about this. Cunningham straightened his 5-foot, 8-inch frame, smoothing his carefully tailored tunic, and set out toward the waiting vessel.

The space dock was an aerogel/metal foam platform about 30 meters square with a small control house beside it. The ship-to-surface passenger and freight vehicle rested in its cradle. They were loading food supplies to go up to the Exeter. This was foolish in Cunningham’s opinion—supplying food grown on this wonderful new world for a few holdouts that insisted on staying shipside. Why does Tang and his crew hang on to the idea that they’re going to be rescued? By whom? But he knew that there was a remnant of the crew who believed that somehow they would figure out a way to re-open the gate, or whatever it was that had dropped them here, and return to 24th century Earth. They just need to accept the facts and go with the flow. I and my people have everything we need to tame a new world! Almost everything anyway. That was why he was making this trip up to the Exeter.

The manufacture of advanced power supplies and certain other machinery was going to be a problem for a generation or two. But, how fortuitous and even providential that the colonists had brought with them 95 percent of what they would need on the virgin planet they had been heading for! It now had all been ferried from the ship’s hold to Mycenae’s surface and was being rapidly deployed. But Tang absolutely must give me those micro-fusion sets. Even if they do figure out how to return to the 24th century they can get replacements then.

Cunningham was overlooking the fact that the a-grav engines that lifted the ship-to-surface vehicle required micro-fusion power. Despite the degree of self-sufficiency they had already achieved, the colonists still needed some advanced infrastructure support. Services such as weather reconnaissance and geo-mapping, were on the Exeter and it would be a while before the colony could provide its own equipment in those areas. Exeter’s science officer and executive medical officer were also useful to the colonists who were short-handed in some disciplines. As long as these people stayed aboard the ship, there would have to be continued communication from the ship to the planet surface, and vice-versa. But I know that can’t last. And Tang knows it as well.

* * *

Jana was in a funk. Every angle she thought of, every software algorithm she checked, every jury-rigged control sequence she tried—they all produced exactly nothing. In the meantime, they investigated other actions, such as setting up a special distress beacon. This was Rolfo’s idea, and she had to humor him a bit. There was no way that would work. They were 36 lightyears from Earth. A normal, light-speed transmission would take 36 years to get to Earth. It would arrive around the year 2065, which was before interstellar space flight had been achieved. So, even if Earth received their SOS what could they do about it? Send back a “We’re sorry!” message? Jana recognized the hint of despair in that last thought and repented of it. She knew that survival, and certainly emotional survival, depended upon keeping a positive attitude.

Next, they thought to somehow modify the tachyonic navigation system to send a faster-than-light message back. Rather, to send it forward, for they were stuck in the past. That was the major obstacle. She thought she could modify the tachyonics to use as an SOS generator. But, how in the world did you aim it to the right place in the galaxy in the right century in the future? She had no clue. Yet, she felt certain that the key to that puzzle lay in the same part of the navigation system that had produced the spacetime dislocation to begin with. The more she thought about it, the more she became convinced that the gate through which they had passed was an opening into the fifth dimension. Once opened, possibly on even a quantum dimension scale, the energy from the Exeter’s negative mass accumulators had widened this tiny rift in spacetime and sent them hurtling down (or up?) a fifth-dimensional canyon to…what? Did we go to the past of our world? Or to a universe parallel to ours?

For Jana, a parallel world was somehow even worse than the thought that they had merely gone back in time. Her scientific training recoiled at the idea of time travel to the past. She knew that cosmologies involving multiverses had been in and out of vogue over the centuries. Instead of time travel to the past of her world, then, it might have been a branching of histories, occasioned at the quantum-scale level by probabilistic behavior in a corrupted navigation system. She wondered if the designers of the HyperNav had inadvertently set up a situation wherein certain choices by its creators would cause the wave function of their existence to collapse into an undesired state? Collapse into an alternate reality?

“That’s really scary!” Jana thoughts burst into a spoken alarm.

“What did you say, Jana?” It was Rolfo. He had just entered the close confines of the navigation equipment cubicle, carefully balancing two bulbs of coffee, one of which he offered in a feigned matter-of-factness. He was always in awe of this accomplished woman.

Jana felt, and was comforted by, his strong masculine presence and enduring optimism. Her vow to not let casual liaisons become permanent attachments after her husband had died was feeling outdated as they orbited this unknown planet with an unknown future. She was warming to a growing trust and friendship with Rolfo and knew that it could easily turn into something more—if she let it. It was never wise to fraternize with a member of your crew, especially someone who reported to you. She had learned that the hard way earlier in her career. But if she couldn’t crack the egg of the faulty HyperNav, there would be no more Exeter to be XO for, and Rolfo would no longer be subordinate crew. She couldn’t (and didn’t want to) deny the pleasurable sensations aroused by his presence so close to her in the cramped compartment. She took the coffee he offered and smiled.

“Oh, just mumbling to myself about the cowboys and the Indians. The Indians have us surrounded, you know, and we’re running out of ammunition.” It was a standing joke between them. Her leisure time taste for old Westerns was a source of fun for Rolfo who, she realized, could not understand how someone with the kind of education she had would go for stuff like that. Rolfo had intimated that this kind of entertainment was more in keeping with his station in life than hers. But Jana pushed such reasoning aside. Rolfo was a dear man, and she did not think of him as any less capable or resourceful than she was, despite any differences in education. Like her brother, Jana had very egalitarian ideals and Rolfo was, if nothing else, a colleague on equal grounds. Especially now, considering the straits they were in. Thoughts of her brother caused a sharp pain, which she hid from Rolfo.

“Seriously, though,” she placed her hand on his arm, “I was thinking about the tachyonic communication problem. I confess, I fell into a bit of a funk about it. But I’ll snap out of it, if for no other reason than that you’re here now.” Her emphasis on the last three words and a penetrating friendliness in her blue eyes brought an immediate flush of red to his face.

Rolfo cleared his throat, not sure how to respond to her obvious flirtation, and said haltingly “Well that’s, um, kind of you, Jana. I don’t know that there’s anything so special about me, but if you say so I’ll latch onto it. We haven’t got a whole lotta hope or options just now, so all the good feelings that we can muster will go a long way.” He was glad they had gotten to the stage of calling each other by first names, even while on duty. It was still hard to look straight into those crystal eyes, however. He’d seen then cold and distant at times (for others) but right now they were smiling very warmly at him.

“Well said, Rolfo. Come, let’s leave this stifling warren of wires and widgets and take a little air, so to speak, topside. About this time dusk will be arriving in New Athens and we can watch the terminator sweep across this lovely new planet.”

“You sound like you might want to live there, Jana.”

She paused as they entered the corridor and looked at him sweetly. “Rolfo, do you really think, in your heart of hearts, that we are going to get away from here? Come on, let’s go topside.” She gently directed him down the corridor to the elevator shaft that would take them to the command level of the Exeter, and thence to the observation deck. Rolfo kept his eyes straight ahead and concentrated on not stumbling. They walked in silence.

When they entered the lift, they found none other than Roger Cunningham, the mayor of New Athens.

“Why, hello, Mr. Cunningham,” said Jana good-naturedly. “Or, Mayor Cunningham,” putting the emphasis on the title. “Here to preach the gospel of colonization again, are you?” There was no rancor in her voice, though certainly some of the things Cunningham had said to the Exeter crew in the past about their foolishness passed through her mind. But Jana’s vow of optimism held, and she smiled at him as he answered.

“No, I am not. I am here, against my better judgment, to get Tang, Captain Tang that is, to make good on his promise of the power supplies we need. I really do not like having to come to him, hat in hand this way. But we are in desperate need for those supplies, and I cannot see why you folks here need them.”

Jana surprised him at that point, interjecting before he could continue, “I’ll have a word with Captain Tang myself. I think I agree with you that we do not need all of them.” She looked down on him with a kindly smile.

Cunningham was speechless, and he looked from Jana to Rolfo and back to Jana in surprise. Jana turned back to Rolfo as Cunningham looked away, studying the progressive series of lights indicating the passing decks. A clumsy silence ensued until they reached the executive deck where Cunningham departed. As he left the car he said, genuinely, “Thank you Commander Anders. I would appreciate it.” With that, he turned crisply and left Jana and Rolfo to their journey topside.

* * *

 “Please inform Captain Tang that Roger Cunningham is here to see him.” Cunningham spoke to the orderly. He had thought to announce himself as Mayor Cunningham (recently elected), but after that warm-hearted remark from Commander Anders he thought better of it. Tang certainly knew he had been elected and he likely knew why Cunningham was here as well. So, he thought, I’ll try a softer approach, and lead into my concern with a report on how well things are going. As he was finishing this mental preparation the stateroom door opened and the orderly motioned him inside.

“Good afternoon, Captain Tang,” he said in as positive a tone he could muster. He almost added words to the effect that at least it was afternoon on the planet surface, in New Athens. But he caught himself in time, preserving his newfound strategy.

“Hello Roger. Good to see you again.” Arun Tang always tried to use the familiar greeting, the name he knew people most liked to go by. He had long since learned that Roger Cunningham liked to be addressed by his first name, even by people with whom he was not closely connected. Motioning Cunningham to sit in one of two cushioned chairs that faced each other on either side of a simulated oak side table, and seating himself in the other, he continued, “By the way, Roger, congratulations on your election. You’re just the man for the job. I would have voted for you myself had I been, uh, part of the community. But you know…”

“Yes, I understand Captain Tang,” Cunningham cut him off politely. “You don’t have to explain. The colonists have set up a charter to govern themselves and I know that you understand the need to establish certain rules such as voting rights. Once you are a member of the community, however, you’ll be free to vote. That is,” he paused and gave Tang a non-committal look, “if you decide to become a member of the community.” He hurried on, not wishing to dwell on this. For already the conversation was veering in a direction he did not want, nor think productive. “I’d like to give you a progress report and to thank you for your help so far. I also want to say how pleased I am that the community has been able to export, so to speak, food grown we have grown ourselves on the new world to serve you and your crew’s needs.” Cunningham surprised himself with these words. Surely Jana Anders’ behavior in the elevator must be working its magic on even him. He had heard that she had a way about her that bewitched people, notwithstanding her bewitching beauty, which was not inconsiderable. If he was not happily married himself, he would readily court the commander. Though, he suspected he would not have gotten very far. Anders was a purposeful, and driven leader who clearly knew what she wanted and how to get it. Like me, he prided himself, though without her science background, which he did not in the least understand. Two people with similar drive, he realized, would probably not do well together. Even, or especially, in the challenging circumstances of building a new world on an uninhabited planet.

“Yes, we have enjoyed the fresh vegetables,” Tang was saying.

“Well, yes, and that is not all,” Cunningham resumed. “We have located deposits of bauxite in the alluvial plain northeast of New Athens and have begun mining operations there. We are fabricating a small aluminum smelter. The aluminum together with the powdered titanium hydride we brought with us will enable us to fabricate all the metal foam panels we need for building and infrastructure. Housing and building construction will be wood at first of necessity, but in time we will have more modern structures with better building materials. Plastics, too, are in our plans, as you know.”

Cunningham continued, warming to his task. “Two separate groups of our colonists have decided to launch out and found cities, or towns, in two different locations some distance from New Athens. One group has settled Mycenae City just southwest of New Athens, where there are gorgeously forested valleys with rich mineral deposits and good farming land. The other group is going to the seacoast, on the northeast corner of the continent, some one thousand kilometers away. They hope to establish fishing and forestry industries there. They have decided to call their city Cyclades, after a Mediterranean island famous for fishing.”

At this, Captain Tang broke into a large grin. Cunningham wasn’t sure why. “What’s so funny about that Captain,” he asked.

“Not funny, certainly. No offense, Roger. I just think it is amusing how all your cities and place names are taken from ancient Greek civilization. I understand that you have renamed this star, cataloged in the Federation database as 54 Piscium. You’re calling it Apollo, I believe?” Cunningham nodded, stiffly. “Good choice, I might add. Much better than its official star catalog name.”

“Well,” Cunningham relaxed a bit, “I readily admit that my wife, Persis, is something of an extreme philhellene. She already has a little Greek culture interest group going, in fact, and has quite an influence on our growing society. I guess some of it is catching on with many others.” Cunningham was proud of his wife’s leadership in New Athens society. She was an able partner to his political ambitions. “Although the Greek naming is a bit of a trifle, I do think it gives the colonists a sense of adventure and uniqueness about their endeavors. It helps with the hardships, you know.”

He continued, “Which brings me to another issue.” Keeping his voice soft, to not destroy the somewhat collegial atmosphere, Cunningham brought up the matter of the power supplies. Outlining the need again, he now added a new dimension. “With the two pioneer cities being formed there will be a need for communications. We could use old fashioned, shortwave radio. Your Science Officer informs us that the ionosphere of Mycenae is adequate for that. But laser comms are so much more convenient, and easier to use. Unfortunately, they require more power. With the two groups moving off to remote locations, we do not have enough micro-fusion power plants to send one with each of them.” Here, he paused and looked Tang in the eye.

Tang was silent for a moment, then began, “Roger, I know and appreciate the need. And I think, I hope, that you appreciate the need on our end as well. If Exeter is in orbit, we need the power supplies we have for basic services. If we rely on the ship’s normal space propulsion systems, we risk burning up needed fuel. Fuel that would be needed for re-entry and transit to a destination planet. That is, if we ever get a chance to try that.” Here he looked hard at Cunningham, seeing the rising skepticism in his facial features and body language. “Yes, I know that you think that is foolish. And I know that there is something else that you have figured out. We are coming to a decision point. Exeter cannot stay indefinitely in this orbit—we are using precious fuel to make continuous orbital corrections. By staying close enough to the planet surface to utilize the tractor beam for ship-to-surface transit we experience significant atmospheric drag over time. To move further out would help that, but then we would cut ourselves off from supplies from you. So, we are in a no-win situation. However, and I tell you this in confidence and in the hope that you will not take advantage. The crew is split on whether to persevere in the hope for rescue or a navigational fix, or whether to come down and join the colony, giving up all hope of returning to Earth or Verde or wherever their loved ones and families are.” Tang paused, letting what he said sink in. “Yes,” he said, “There is that difference between them and you all. You have brought your families with you, and you never intended to return to Earth or go to any of its far-flung settlements. We, however, had not done so. We have families who are awaiting our return. Or most of us do. Nevertheless, the reality of our situation is sinking in. Soon, I think, we all will join you. But it isn’t time yet. So, bear with us, if you will, and be patient. And continue in the good work down there so that when we do join you, we will have some of the comforts of home already waiting for us.” With this he smiled and stood, signaling that their meeting was over. As Tang ushered Cunningham to the door, he added, “Let me consult with my chief engineer about the power supplies. I think we may be able to do something.”

* * *

A week later, Captain Tang assembled the crew on the Exeter’s mess deck. He had worked on his speech for two days but still felt inadequate to the task. A weariness was setting in, threatening his resolve. Still, he had to give it a go and let the chips fall as they may. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began. “You all know the events over the past six months or so that have led to our present situation, orbiting the planet Mycenae, as the colonists have named it. So, I do not need to rehearse those. It is important, however, to bring you up to date on our present circumstances. Not to put too severe a face upon the situation, it is nevertheless serious. I would even say desperate. We have not been able to fix the Exeter’s navigation system concerning the bug or malfunction that dropped us into another, and very distant region of spacetime. Nor have we figured out how to communicate with InterStellar officials or anyone else in the 24th century from whence we came. We have run out of rations that were stored on the ship and are now dependent upon food provided by the growing colonies on the planet surface. In order to receive those food shipments, we must maintain a low altitude. This, as you know, requires continued use of fuel for orbit corrections, and we are now running low on fuel. We could go to a higher orbit but at the price of cutting off our food supply.” Here Tang paused for long seconds, to let the facts sink in.

“At this point,” he then continued, “I find no other way to state the obvious but to be blunt:  If we are to survive, we must abandon the Exeter and join the colonists. There is no other recourse. I know that some of you are ready to do this, yet others are not. I urge you all to speak with one another over the next few days and to try come to a unified consent in this. Because…,” He tried to add a hopeful note to his voice, “If you act as a single body, each one holding with his or her neighbor, it will give you all the strength you need to live out your life in a manner and location that you never would have thought necessary or possible a year ago.” Tang concluded with some words of praise for various members of his crew over recent accomplishments, and then opened the meeting for questions. There were a few.

“Captain.” It was Tyrone Weld, the Quartermaster. He was one of those who already was willing to go down. “Captain, when do we go? That is, do you have a plan for disembarking or a deadline of any sort?”

“Good question, Sergeant. There is a plan, and it involves a phased departure from the ship, to keep things operational. I will post the schedule at 0800 tomorrow. I will be the last to leave. However, I will say this, if anyone disagrees with the order, I post I am open to rearranging things—if I can do so without endangering safety of you all and of the ship while anyone is aboard.”

“Captain Tang,” Serene Jackson, the ship’s Medical Officer, spoke up. She had a husband and young children on Verde. It had been very hard on her and she was still on the verge of a nervous breakdown. “What is the possibility of retracing our path and going back through the wormhole, or whatever it was, to the 24th Century? I understand that the problem may have been that we travelled too close to a large star. Could we perhaps try to duplicate this in a reverse sort of way?”

Tang responded, “I think I will let Commander Anders answer that. Jana?”

“Okay, sure. Serene, and all of you as well, I know how much you wish that such could be possible. In fact, it is the first thing I thought of when we understood what had happened. I will admit that whatever is the malfunction in the navigation system it is quite possible that if we were to attempt transit into a hyperspace bubble near a large mass object something similar could happen. The problem with that is, we would have no control whatsoever as to where we would end up. That’s because I believe the error in the coding modules of the new Gen-4 HyperNav is random in its effect. Without understanding the source of that error and fixing it, we could end up anywhere, and be in a far worse state for it. Therefore, it is not an option—at least until and if I can find and fix the error.” Then, she added, “Rolfo and I are still working on the HyperNav and will do so until the day of departure planned. I do not hold out much hope, but we will continue as long as we are able.”

There were a couple more questions of a minor nature, about this or that detail associated with disembarkation. Tang handled these smoothly and then dismissed the meeting. There was little discussion among the men and women as they quietly went back to their stations or other activities. Tang was thankful that no one came up to him and that the session was over. He retired to his cabin and sat down with a sigh of relief. Ordering a drink from the cabin replicator, he pondered the future—a future on a new world. He was a widower, and his two children were grown, but with neither mates nor children of their own. And one of the two was here. He had already joined the colonists and there was an incipient romance in the offing. Tang, therefore, could face the future on Mycenae more equably than some in his crew. Moreover, he was not feeling well. The stress of the recent months had affected his health and he was now experiencing worrying symptoms. He had put it off until now, but he must go see Serene and let her examine him. He resolved to do that first thing in the morning, after posting the disembarkation schedule. This he now turned to, to complete the draft that he had already begun.

As he was finishing the schedule a knock came on his door. “It’s open,” he answered, pushing the finished schedule aside. It was Jana. “Hello Jana,” he said, and then asked, “How do you think it went? Please be honest.”

“It went well enough, I guess. Everyone knows the score—has known it for some time, in fact. Word gets around, you know. Your meeting was just to put an official face on the ghost that has been haunting the ship for weeks. Uh, sorry, for the allusion, sir…” Jana realized that her imagery had been inappropriate. She knew Tang wasn’t feeling well and she was concerned for his health. They all felt the strain, but some took it better than others.

“That’s all right. I guess it is something of a ghost. Maybe it will cease to look that way now that we’ve put an official face on it, as you say. Anyway, you didn’t come to talk about ghosts. Have a seat and tell me what’s on your mind.”

Jana sat across from him, the writing table between them. She rested her forearms on the table, folding her hands comfortably. “Well, it’s the idea of a distress beacon, sir. You may remember that Rolfo brought this up at one of our meetings awhile back, but we put it off as we were still hopeful for a fix in the system. Now, however, it would seem to be more of an imperative.”

“What kind of a distress beacon? And why?” Tang wanted to know.

“Not using the tachyonics. We don’t know how to aim such a signal across a 350-year chronological divide. Rather, a regular light-speed form of communication, using a frequency and content that could be detected and be understood by Earth. Earth of the 21st century that is. The century in which we find ourselves,” she added unnecessarily.

Tang sat up then, with greater alertness. They both knew such a beacon could not be received on Earth for 36 years and a response, if it came at all, would exceed their own life spans likely. In any event, what would the good citizens of pre-space-travel Earth do with such an SOS? So, he jumped past the obvious point: “And you hope to gain by this, not a rescue as such but, but a…what?”

She hesitated. She knew the answer but shied at the apparent foolishness of it. “A warning. A warning that, when they do develop interstellar space travel on Earth, they should take it slow. That they should be careful as to who or what controls the development of technology.” Here Jana was alluding to something that she had previously confided to him, that of her dissatisfaction over the way that InterStellar controlled the trade secrets to space travel and prevented true competition in this arena. Competition, she believed, would result in better products, safer systems, checks and balances. Their present predicament might have been avoided had that been the case in their own 24th century.

Tang was not so easily persuaded. “What about potential chronology problems for 21st century Earth? What would or could a message from the future do to the future course of events for those on Earth? For that is what it would be, isn’t it? In essence, a message from the future from an advanced civilization. Is it even possible that this would constitute some sort of time paradox in which news from a future civilization could effectively prevent the formation of that future civilization, leaving us in a logical limbo of sorts?”

“Yes,” Jana hesitated momentarily. “Yes, I’ve thought of that.”

“And…?”

“And, I have an answer. An answer of sorts.”

“Go on,” Tang’s curiosity was kicking in. Jana was brilliant and he enjoyed her thinking process.

“To be blunt, Arun,” she used his first name, a rare condescension to their intellectual fraternity. She continued, “An alternate reality, a parallel world.”

“A what?”

“When we went through the gate, I believe that we may not have just gone to another place in spacetime. We may have entered a parallel universe. A universe with just a very slight offset from our own, but different, nonetheless. If so, that will protect us from the time paradox you suggest. We may be in a different universe from the one we started this journey in.” Drawing a breath, for her words now tumbled out, Jana continued. “That means the universe that we now inhabit is one in which the descendants of those in the 21st century who receive our distress signal could go forth into space without creating the paradox you refer to. Their 24th century will not be ours. They may be able to recognize that a people from a future, but alternate spacetime, had gotten trapped in their universe through misapplication of the benefits of science. It may also be that when they do achieve interstellar space travel capability, they will seek out the originators of those signals. That’s us. Except, we, you and I and all the crew and passengers of Exeter, will be long gone. It will be our descendants they find. If they survive, that is. And…if there is a distress beacon to call attention to us. If all that happens—and I know that’s a lot of ifs—but if that happens then they may be more cautious with the unchecked development of technology.”

“Whew, that is a galaxy full!” Tang exclaimed. “How in space did you come up with that?”

“Well, first, please know that it is just speculation. I have no proof of this. We do not know, cannot know.” She paused, and then continued, “Anyway, a simpler solution to the time paradox you suggest is to go ahead and try to put up the beacon. If we are successful in doing so—that is if some weird or unexpected series of events does not prevent us from doing so—then we may rest assured that our past, in whatever universe it exists, is one in which we must have in the future sent signals back.” Tang gave her a puzzled look. Jana went on, “I believe a 20th-century physicist by the name of Stephen Hawking proposed such a “chronology protection” feature of the universe. Events that could create time paradoxes cannot, or will not, happen in any real universe. If putting up the beacon would cause a time paradox we will, in some way, be unsuccessful in trying to do so. Or there will be no success in Earth receiving or acting on our message on the other end.”

Tang was a space jockey, not a physicist. So, in the end, even though he failed to fully follow Jana’s logic, he assented to the mounting of a high gain antenna on the hull of Exeter and the assembly of a powerful radio transmitter from parts that Rolfo had been able to find. He did suggest, however, that besides a 21st century coded signal they also include a modern code. A signal that used 24th century astronavigation conventions. Not really believing Jana’s parallel universe theory, he knew that at some point InterStellar would send a rescue mission and that such a mission might indeed find them, or rather their descendants. If they came to this star system, the modern beacon code would guide them to the colony. Of course, the grim reality was that were a rescue mission dispatched to this star system from the century from which they had come, such a mission would arrive here some 350 years from now. If that were the case, and if the beacon could somehow be kept operational for three and a half centuries, the rescue mission would possibly be able to find their descendants. That was a long shot, of course. A lot could happen to a human colony in that period of time. In fact, and he brightened momentarily at this thought, their descendants might even go to the stars themselves. Would they meet themselves, so to speak, in the 24th Century? He doubted it but decided to hold off posing that to Jana until the next time they spoke of such things.

The distress beacon was successfully deployed, powered by one of Exeter’s remaining micro-fusion power supplies. Rolfo added to the two coded messages a personal touch: a short musical piece from his favorite band. Jana laughed at that and happily included it in a rotating sequence with the two coded signals.

Exeter’s orbit would begin decaying more severely now that they had reduced boosting. Jana calculated that the spacecraft would probably last only five or six weeks before succumbing to Mycenae’s atmospheric drag. Their plan, therefore, was to remove the transmitter and antenna after about one month and take it planet side. That meant that Jana’s plan to warn Earthlings about mishandling advanced technology would amount to a signal lasting one month or so, and very likely might not even be noticed. The signal from the planet’s surface would not be as strong. In the first place, the planet’s ionosphere would reflect some of the signal. Moreover, the micro-fusion power supply could not be expected to last more than a century or so—unless the colonists developed means to separate deuterium from the seawater. In any event, the pressure coming from the likes of Cunningham meant that once on the planet surface, the micro-fusion power supply would get appropriated for more urgent needs. Anticipating such a scenario, Rolfo’s plan was to convert the power source of the transmitter to solar once it was set up on the planet. A solar powered transmitter wouldn’t be powerful enough to reach Earth with a coherent beam, but it would create a signal that a rescue party could pick up in local space. Current solar cell technology was based on multi-layered, perovskite fullerenes that were room-temperature superconductors with high efficiency power conversion. The flexible, power-generating sheets would last almost forever. Rolfo and Jana suspected that whatever befell the new civilization on Mycenae, the solar panels would remain operational without human intervention.

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